"The Sand Girl", a black-and-white film made by the imperial envoy Hiroshi Kawara in 1964. Adapted from the novel "Sand Girl" by Abe Kobo. The soundtrack is Takemitsu Toru. If the director is replaced by Kobayashi Masaki, this movie should have the evil charm of "Snow Girl" in "Strange Talk". "If there is no punishment, there is no joy of escape." This is a Japanese proverb at the beginning of the original novel. This movie is more like an allegory, a life situation that has no historical background, no race, no gender, no escape. Today, those struggling to survive in the steel jungle may feel the same. At the beginning of the film, Large tracts of fantasy desert. The black and white film has a strong picture quality, and Toru Takemitsu's soundtrack is desolate and haunted, showing infinite tension. A tired man walking alone in the desert. He's a biology instructor, tired of urban life, and looking for unknown insects that can be named after him as new species are discovered. The meaning of the material world to him is only this. At the end of the desert is the sea. Missing the last train, he, with a dry mouth, walked helplessly in the desert. Lu met a few fishermen who seemed to be stupid, and kindly helped him and took him to a fisherman's house to stay. At that time, it was already dark, the fishermen put down the human ladder, and the man who consciously escaped danger climbed down the human ladder without hesitation. He was greeted by a middle-aged woman. Nothing fancy, nothing new. There is the simplicity and suppleness of a woman in her forties. Prepare food for him, fan the fan, and tell him that this is his first day. He wanted to take a bath, but the woman said that there would be no water for three days, and that the sand was so wet that people would get sand rash. He smiled, finding it absurd what the woman said. He only has three days off, and tomorrow morning, he thought, will leave this desolate place. At night, the woman goes to work, takes a shovel and keeps shoveling sand. He was puzzled. The woman said that if the sand was not shoveled for a day or two, the house would be flooded with quicksand. He didn't mind either. The next morning, he packed his bags and was ready to leave. And the woman who was tired all night fell asleep naked, her body covered with fine grains of sand. He put some money on the bed, ready to go. When he walked outside, he saw everything here. It turned out that the house was at the bottom of a sand dune dozens of meters high, and the human ladder that picked him up last night had long since disappeared. The man was a little flustered and wanted to try to climb out, but the sand was too soft to bear the force. All in vain. He was forced to stay. At first, it was anger. Knowing to be tricked by those foolish fishermen. Keep telling the woman that he is not a homeless man, that he has a home and will not be with a woman like her, that he has a proper occupation, a city household registration, and that the school will come to him if he is missing... woman, keep apologizing , but secretly delighted in his heart. Men treat women hard and soft, just to get out of this lifeless place. The woman said there was nothing she could do. She was only a widow, and her husband and daughter were buried in a sandstorm. Because of loneliness, the fishermen sometimes assign some men to her. Most of them got scammed. There are college students and ordinary employees, but they don't stay long... The woman hesitated, and then quietly told him that in order to survive, she had to follow her to shovel sand every night, and she couldn't handle it alone; Sleeping naked; water should also be saved, and the fishermen's supplies are delivered by human ladders once a week Come down... He is a little desperate. To survive or to perish? Go on a hunger strike and lie in bed waiting to die? When quicksand from the roof began to come in, he could only choose to shovel sand with her. It turns out that it is better to die than to live! How shameful was his stupidity and naivety when he came to stay for the night! Lonely men and widows live in the same room, and there is no chance of a romantic affair. There is no secret affection from the shadows of trees, only the animal desires that cannot be concealed in the cramped space. Two lonely puppets fight each other, copulate, and comfort each other. Live day by day. He, becoming cunning, is still looking for opportunities to escape. Every time the fishermen gave them supplies, he would hide a piece of fishing net, and over time, twist it into a rope. Then one day, the woman got drunk, climbed on the roof, tied a thick fish hook to the end of the rope, and got away with it. But where is this? The yellow sand is long, and one dune is followed by another. People are in the vast desert, the end of the desert is the boundless barren sea, the bright moon is in the sky, everything is endless, and the joys and sorrows of people are buried in the moment. He almost lost his life in the quicksand, but was rescued by the villagers and returned to the cursed hut. He no longer wanted to escape like he used to. Once he told the villagers that he would not run away, could he be allowed to watch the sea for 30 minutes or 10 minutes a day. It is no longer urgent to escape, but I still want to leave. He made a trap for crows, which he called "hope," he told the woman. When a hungry crow falls into a trap in order to eat small fish, he will catch the crow and use its feet to tie a distress message, and those who see it will come to rescue him. Fishermen sometimes bring him a newspaper or two, or even a radio, in his supplies. And the fun of the fishermen also escalated, telling him that as long as he promised to perform that thing with women in front of the fishermen, he could let him go. He can already put down his dignity to entertain everyone. A woman who is usually obedient will not obey her order this time. As the story draws to a close, the woman is carried away by fishermen for treatment because of an ectopic pregnancy. When the crowd dispersed, the human ladder hung there. He, approached, and returned to the hut. After thinking about it, I waited for the fishermen to come back and tell them that they had stumbled upon a well. The door to freedom is just around the corner. He no longer runs away. At the end of the film, his family announces that he has been missing for seven years, seemingly implying that the man will never return to the past. The film is easily reminiscent of the myth of Sisyphus that pushes the boulder up the mountain over and over again. If the act of pushing a boulder up the mountain is only regarded as a punishment, then Sisyphus has nothing but despair; if he accepts the repetitive boring work, the inevitability of life, and the absurdity of an individual life, perhaps it is Happy beginning. I remember a sentence I saw before: anything as long as You have reached its limit, there is no way forward, and there is no reason to turn back, then you will be left behind. Then you have to "stop as if you are dead." Men want freedom and want to return to their original life, why did they give up in the end? Perhaps, after tossing around like a moonlight treasure box, he found that the choice to go or stay was beyond his control. Being a mediocre little teacher, the 9-to-5 life, the same routine, is repulsive, but it feels safe. Freedom is like an impromptu three-day trip to find insects, you never know what will happen, who you will meet, whether you will find unnamed little bugs...while looking for unknown insects or in the sand dunes Among them, shoveling sand, setting traps to catch crows, and finding wells to make a living seem to bring him similar happiness. What is the so-called freedom? Is it perpetually wandering in unknowable karma? When he is tired, like a bird on a dead branch, he is too lazy to run away, bears the fate of the individual calmly, stops the endlessly painful flight in his mind trying to break free, and puts down the city household registration he used to, someone's husband , The various identities of biology teachers, no one is just a man in the dunes. Just be the master of the desolate world at the bottom of the abyss, surrender to the present, the world, and instantly be as peaceful as a full moon by the sea. A woman in a claustrophobic space is another being. If men always want to escape back to their real comfort zone, women are just afraid of loneliness and loneliness. All about the woman's past is omitted in the movie, and only in the dialogue it is known that the woman's husband and children are buried in the sand. She lives on supplies from the villagers. The good-natured villagers amused themselves by tricking men who broke in from the outside into her house from time to time. Her attitude towards this is: if there is no ghost idea of these villagers, she will die alone. Her every word and deed revealed her own needs: the company of a man. Whether it's a hawker selling postcards, or a college student doing surveys... She said, young people don't stay long. She is afraid of being alone. As a lonely person, she doesn't know how to be her own master, and it seems that she always hopes to have a man to lead her and accompany her. Even in the end, the villagers dragged her who was seriously ill up, and she still looked at the man out of the corner of her eyes, afraid that he would leave. The shadow of death could not extinguish the fervent desire for love in her heart. Perhaps women's own problems can never escape the contradiction between relying on and holding on to emotions! Imagine that we accidentally fell into the abyss of the sand dunes like the hero, what would you choose? Maybe, some people escaped and went back to live their previous lives; some fell into quicksand and died silently in the process of escaping; some people will be like this man Just stay the same... I may be like that man, in order to make the process of shoveling sand less painful, catch crows and find a well. A life without ID cards, real estate certificates, marriage certificates, assignment contracts, employment contracts, etc. is a kind of freedom that countless modern urbanites fantasize about! And such freedom, in this story, is exchanged for the male protagonist being forced to be imprisoned in the sand dunes. The movie is over, there is a big dream, and our respective piles of sand are still there. I remembered the poem of the old man Mengdie: As long as there are half fireflies in front of you, you and I have no right to cry and hang yourself. My dear, let's go shoveling sand together!
View more about Woman in the Dunes reviews
