Motheo Mofokeng

"Woman in the Dunes" (1964), dir. Hiromi Teshigahara. The standard interpretation of this film's plot is the absolute meaningless of everyday work in a post-capitalist society and the almost Sisyphean nature of struggle in which we are consigned to push a rock up the cliff only for it to collapse and the eternal recurrence of the same push ad infinitum. And while this interpretation is correct. I'd like us to consider an alternative interpretation, this time based on the Hegelian lord-bondsman dialectic. As we know from the plot, the protagonist is an entomologist who upon leaving Tokyo escaping the everyday pressures of his job as a teacher to find recognition through his scientific pursuits, escapes to a faraway sand-dune village and ends up trapped in a sandpit whilst looking for shelter, held captive by a young widow, with whom she develops a complicated romantic and sexual relationship with, whilst at the same time, increasingly frustrated and paranoid by his inability to climb the sandpit and escape the village. Upon realizing the impossibility of an absolute escape, he dedicates his time at using his scientific knowledge to improve the water supply of their abode, thereby hoping his skills will eventually gain him the recognition and trust of the ruthless and sadistic village council. In this instance, our protagonist (and the widow to a certain extent) can be regarded as the bondsman, and the village council as the relative lord, to which the bondsman is consigned to servitude under (both the widow and protagonist have to shovel heaps of sands every night to the councilmen in exchange for food and water rations. The councilmen in turn sell this sand to building contractors in the city). The absolute lord in this regard is the abundant sand from the dunes that often invades their recluse underground property and overrides their personal sanctity, which can also be read as a metaphor for death. It is through the confrontation with death and through the labour of his servitude and scientific aptitude for water retention, that the bondsman realises his capacity for self-consciousness, and thus attains a mastery over his fear of death (the sand as absolute lord) and attains a self-sufficient subjectivity in the pursuit for recognition and mutual reciprocity from the village council, his relative lord: a being-for-itself from which he was alienated from initially. Please note this is by no means an exhaustive interpretation. Just a preliminary reflection. This is a brilliant film from the Japanese New Wave cinema of the 1960s. Highly-recommended.