20/04/2026
Woman of the Dunes (1964 Hiroshi Teshigahara)
This Sunday!
A landmark Japanese psychological thriller and one of Andrei Tarkovski's favourite films.
It is widely celebrated for its striking black-and-white cinematography and its existential, allegorical storytelling.
An amateur entomologist collecting insects from a costal area finds himself trapped in the dunes inside a giant pit that contains a house and a woman.
One of the most important films of the Japanese new wave, made in collaboration with avant-gard writer Kobo Abe, who also wrote two other Teshigahara films: Pitfall and Face Of Another.
It is also worth noting the soundtrack by Toru Takemitsu, an avant-garde composer often described as "the Gardener of Sound", viewing his compositions not as structured arguments, but as landscapes that the listener walks through.
Takemitsu’s music is defined by his use of silence, rooted in the Japanese concept of Ma (the space between things). He didn't see silence as an "empty" void, but as a "pregnant" space where sounds have the freedom to breathe. He once said that sound should be so refined it approaches the "nothingness of the wind in the bamboo grove".
Teshigahara only made 7 feature films (like Tarkovsky) and Takemitsu scored 4 of them.
He also made several medium length documentaries. His film Ikebana is incredibly beautiful about the art of flower arrangement. He also made a documentary on Gaudi.
Sunday at 7pm at The Oak, Kemptown.
Free entry.
