I must confess that I always watch
black-and-white films with some pain and difficulty. If the film is primarily a
visual art, which it undoubtedly is, then the primacy of colour and visual
effects cannot be denied, and consequently it is perhaps not entirely
unacceptable to profess a preference for the visual abundance and dynamism
offered by the colourful cinema. The Woman of the Dunes (1964 砂の女) is a
notable exception in this regard for me, as I seem to have enjoyed this one in
spite of its black-whiteness.
This is a
film very rich in abstract metaphorism and symbolism, but which manages to be
visceral and very sensually affective at the same time. There can be many
competing interpretations of the film, but I personally suspect that the
‘traditional society vs modernity’ version is likely to be the most obvious and
prominent. The woman who lives in the dunes is a martyr of the enclosed, self-sustaining
traditional society, a sacrifice to the feudal values of patriarchy and
rootedness. The Woman repeatedly refers to the outside world by invoking Tokyo, the symbol of burgeoning modernity
in post-War Japan. The reference to the co-operative
(組み合い) run by the village chiefs (all men) also hints to the survival
struggle of rural, traditional community against the sweep of modernising
forces.
But what
really sparked off in my mind was a slightly different interpretation, where
the portrayal of the quality of sand is pivotal. After the entomologist has
fallen into the trap set up by the villagers, he tries hard to climb out of the
sand pit. But his efforts are in vain – sand does not support weights; it
slides, it collapses, it flows almost like water. One cannot apply force to
sand in order to ascend; but sand can bury, and kill, without a trace. At the
end of the film, the entomologist is declared a missing person, and the outside
world would have assumed that he has been gorged by the dunes. He ceases to exist,
and his identity evaporates. This is exactly the working of the society.
The sand is
thus a perfect metaphor for the society itself. In front of the society, any personal
struggle is in vain. You cannot apply force to the society; the harder you
struggle, the worse the consequences. The society has an enormity – as
reflected by the depiction of the dunes in the film which dries any last bit of
hope – and a destructiveness that has no respect whatsoever for individuality
or personality, just as the identity of the protagonist is eradicated.
The hut in
the sand pit, with a couple who did not come together by their volition, living
a purposeless, repetitive life is a fitting metaphor for Life itself. The sand
dunes are the society, they are shifting, but also eternal; you find a pit,
built a makeshift hut, live with someone until you both die, that is life. When
you die, someone else takes your place in the pit, live in the hut; or the sand
will fill the pit, erasing any marks you’ve left behind you. The entomologist initially
hopes to have his name entered into the Encyclopedia by discovering a rare
species of insect in the desert, but he ends up in an identity-less life in the
dunes…isn’t this the metaphor for all our lives? We try to achieve things, and
leave marks in this world, to prove that we’ve been here, and that we’ve done
x, y, z…but don't be stupid!
The human
condition could not have been better symbolised by the fact that in order to
keep on living in their hut, the couple has to shovel sand out daily to keep
themselves from being eventually buried under. ‘Isn’t this pointless’, asks the
entomologist to the Woman. Exactly! It is pointless, but the greatest
philosophical wisdom perhaps is realising life’s pointless and still living it
earnestly. Religions around the world of all times have concocted all kinds of
fanciful stories to mask over this essentially pointless life – that shovelling
of sand out from one’s pit so that you can keep on doing exactly the same the
next day – but that is not philosophy, that’s deception. To be truly philosophical
is to know that the society is exactly like the sand, and that your duty in
this transient passing-through is to keep on shovelling sand until you die,
decompose, and become part of the eternal sand dunes.
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