Woman in the Dunes
Short description
Niki Jumpei, an entomologist, is collecting insects along a remote stretch of Japanese coast when he misses the last bus back to the city. Local villagers offer him a place to stay for the night, leading him down a rope ladder to a house at the bottom of a deep sand pit, where a young widow lives alone. She feeds him and gives him shelter. By the next morning the ladder is gone, and the villagers make clear that he is not free to leave. He is expected to stay and help the woman with her unending task of shoveling the sand that constantly slides down into the pit.
Hiroshi Teshigahara directed the film, which was released in 1964 and runs 147 minutes. Kōbō Abe wrote the screenplay, adapting his own novel, and Tadashi Ôno and Kiichi Ichikawa produced it for TOHO and Teshigahara Productions. Eiji Okada plays Niki Jumpei and Kyōko Kishida plays the woman; Kōji Mitsui, Hiroko Itō, Sen Yano and Hideo Kanze appear in supporting roles. Made early in Teshigahara's career, it precedes The Face of Another and Rikyu among the features he directed.
The film's reputation has held up over the decades. On TMDB it holds a rating of 8.2 out of 10 from 544 votes, a strong average for a Japanese drama of its era.
What's left behind the scenes
- Kyoko Kishida (who played the woman) and director Hiroshi Teshigahara argued constantly during the production of the film—over a wide variety of issues, ranging from the woman's clothing to the symbolic meaning of the character in the film. Kishida believed that she should play 'simply a woman,' while Teshigahara insisted that she play specifically a Japanese woman. His point of view ultimately prevailed.
- For a significant part of the first dinner scene, Eiji Okada, who played the entomologist, simply improvised.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
