AboveDeepBuggy Some things I liked some I did not.

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Wyatt There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

WILLIAM FLANIGAN Viewed on DVD. This film immediately presents the viewer with two basic problems. First, how to navigate the DVD menu to turn on/off the subtitles (Criterion label DVD menu designers seem to delight in making this a game on release after release). Second, trying to figure out what this movie is really about. Is it a protest against modern society in general and Tokyo life styles in particular? Is it an anti-capitalist tome? An anti-labor union allegory? How the conventional wisdom of not digging deeper when in a hole is untrue (especially for sand)? An anti-prison movie? A free-the-sand-dune-bugs protest film? All of the above? None of the above? For sure, it is a spider-and-the-web fantasy tale, and a pretty scary one at that. There are also elements of magic scattered about. Only two characters and essentially a single set manage to hold the viewer's attention for two hours and change. This is made possible by A-list actor Eiji Okada and actress Kyoko Kishida. It's Kishida's low keyed, but riveting performance that particularly maintains the viewer's attention. The film was shot in a narrow-screen format and in black and white at a time when this type of packaging had long been abandoned by almost everyone except art-house film directors. Camera work uses a lot of deep focus; tracking/panning is occasionally jerky. Score is sometimes grating; at other times it substantially adds to the sense of terror. Subtitles are fine and essentially indispensable when marginal characters speak with Western Japan accents. Restoration is outstanding. Just sit back, relax, and let the allegories begin! WILLIAM FLANIGAN, PhD.

Marguerite LeDragon A brusque schoolteacher takes a trip out to the dunes to get away from it all by indulging his entomological hobby, hoping to get his name in the books for the discovery of a rare insect. Instead, he is entrapped by a woman who lives endlessly shoveling out the sand from her house in a pit in the dunes. Her husband has died and she needs a man to help with the work and relieve her loneliness. To the man, the life in the dunes is insufferable and absurd, and he does everything possible to escape. To the woman, the life in the dunes is all she knows and she sees little point in venturing beyond, to a wider world where she will have no significance.The film is visually arrested in its shots of drifting dunes, struggling insects, the protagonists, sometimes covered with sand. The two main protagonists are examined in an unsentimental style, empathetically, and yet without any glamorization. We question whether they have any more hope to transcend their situation, than the insects that the man captures. The sand is a metaphor for the routine and pointless nature of the tasks of life. In the end, we are left with the question of which protagonist is closer to correct. We root for the man to escape his criminal imprisonment, feeling the ridiculousness of the situation, but at the same time it's made clear that in his real life in Tokyo, he has little more significant to await him, and that he might just as well learn to love this as anywhere else.On the negative side, the film is long at over two hours, given the extremely spare plot and low-key approach, and grows boring. It's a film that's more fun to think about afterward than watch. In addition, on rewatching the film, the artificiality of the set up begins to wear. It is somewhat of a "one note" movie, with a didactic, Twilight Zone kind of air, where you know the sand stands for one thing, the house for another, it's all a metaphor for life, etc.Overall, a film worth watching, but not perfect.

mihaimarinn It's funny that before I saw this film I was thinking of moving to a different country. After seeing Suna no onna I changed my mind because (in my opinion) the transition to another culture and mentality can bring new things, good and bad in your life, whether you like it or not and the risk can bring consequences that are against you.The stunning cinematography reminds me of Antonioni's L'Avventura that made me feel like I was on another world. The script is brilliant and the direction is that of the work of a genius. I think it refers to the fact that there are very thew things needed to survive, even in a harsh environment. To accept this simple life style, of which it's basic component is a home filled with love is a difficult task if you come from a city in which you only think of your career and reputation. To see a character slowly transform and to erase everything that defined his identity, under the influence of a new world in which he has been sucked into fascinated me. You can feel that this new 'medium" is like a character that participates in the transformation.This is a 'must see" for anybody that is interested in Japanese cinema.

PassPopcorn Woman in the dunes is a great step in Japanese cinematography because Teshigahara, the movie's director, was the first Japanese director to be nominated for an Oscar - and it is truly amazing that, back in 1964, the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences were able to realize the greatness of this movie.It all starts with the entomologist Niki Jumpei (Eiji Okada), alone, walking in the desert, looking for insects. No dialogue, just beautiful cinematography and games of light and shadow. He is invited by the local villagers to spend the night in the home of a widow (Kyôko Kishida), at the bottom of a sandpit, since he has missed the last bus to the city. This does not upset him, he's interested in their way of life, therefore he accepts. But the next morning he discovers the villagers trapped him - just like he traps his beloved insects - and expect him to live with the woman and help her collect the sand daily, receiving food and water in return. So he tries to escape this claustrophobic environment.Where should I begin? This movie has "masterpiece" written all over it. The two main (and almost only) characters are at the same time opposite and similar - opposite in their reaction to the imprisonment, similar in their loneliness and pointlessness of lives that they cherish nonetheless. Okada and Kishida put up amazing performances which make you forget they're just acting. But perhaps the true protagonist is the sand: the dangerous, devastating force that brings purpose to those who have learned to handle and make good use of it. A lot of scenes in the movie show it moving, changing, and always remaining the same, and they are never out of place. It dictates the lives of the people, and one is forced to love it in a perverted, Stockholm syndrome-sque kind of way, just like the widow does even after the sand has killed her husband and daughter. To make the movie fit its gloomy story even better, it was filmed in natural light; also, a lot of important things happen at night (for example, an attempt to escape) and even though you can hardly see anything, you know exactly what's going on. This creepy atmosphere is perfected by what's probably one of the best soundtracks of all time (composed by Toru Takemitsu), since it suits the picture incredibly well, making you feel uncomfortable and scared from the first minutes. And, as a conclusion, there is a sentence, said by the entomologist towards the end of the movie, which, in my opinion, sums up its message: We're pigs anyway. Simple yet powerful, just like everything else in Woman in the dunes.Rating: 9/10 Read more at http://passpopcorn.wordpress.com/