Irish Film Institute -JAPANESE STORY: WOMAN OF THE DUNES

JAPANESE STORY: WOMAN OF THE DUNES

Director: Hiroshi Teshigahara

147 mins, 1964, Japan, Digital.


Junpei (Eiji Okada), a young entomologist, is wandering a remote stretch of coast in search of a rare species of beetle; missing his bus back to Tokyo, he is persuaded by locals to spend the night in the home of a mysterious young woman (Kyôko Kishida) who lives in a hut at the bottom of a deep sand pit, accessible via flimsy rope ladder. He learns that the woman lost her husband and daughter in a sandstorm, and every day she must dig the advancing sand away from her ramshackle abode. The next morning Jinpei wakes to find the ladder gone, and realises he is trapped with the widow and her Sisyphean attempting to keep the relentlessly drifting sand at bay.

Screening as part of the Japanese Story season.

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