Myth of sisyphus

sisyphus analogy: okay.
mask with greek gods: no good.
study japanese culture

What an interesting correlation.

I would also say it relates to the punishment for vanity. In the case of Sisyphus his vanity is greed & material gain. In the case of the man, his vanity is scientific acheivement. Why does he go out there? Because he wants his name published in a scientific journal. Why does he remain? Because he wants to work on his water pump invention.

He, like Sisyphus, is driven to absurd circumstances by his irrational attachment to a fleeting ideal. Here's where I differ from your stance a bit. I don't think it's about the meaninglessness of existence; I think it's about his obsession with the absurd (with Sisyphus as well).

I personally see this film as being a metaphor of the worker's lot under the ruling class, an extension of the satirical film Pitfall (also by Teshigahara, Abe and Takemitsu), with the sand representing drudgery of the workers and villagers as ether either capitalist industrialists or maybe corrupt conservative communists, as Pitfall certainly suggests that conservative left isn't much better than the conservative right. Just a thought. I have reviewed WotD further on my blog in case anyone is interested: http://theenglishassassin.wordpress.com/2006/08/09/woman-of-the-dunes-aka-suna-no-onna-directed-by-hiroshi-teshingahara-1964-%e2%80%93-bw/

I like your theory. But I think the film is also about how we create meaning. Life may be meaningless but we need one and therefore create it. The meaning we create takes over our life in the end, even when we don't need it anymore. He had in a way trapped him self with his own trap/meaning.

We do the same thing in our own life. We make our self believe that something is very important, just to forget the difficult existential questions in life. We create meaning to escape meaninglessness and this meaning takes over our life and prevents us from ever finding the answers to these existential questions.


- This comment is most likely authentic and fairly close to what I intended to say -

I think all your points of view are acceptable, since you can always get a different evaluation of an art work depending on your knowledge.

The original poster is right on point. In fact, the plot of "The Woman in the Dunes" (novel) takes huge inspiration from Camus' Essay on Sisyphus. Here's the last paragraph of the essay:

"I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

The masks used included some Noh-like or more "folk" performance-based masks from dengaku/bugaku (others - like the snorkling goggles were purely "modern" inventions); and one of the main categories of Noh plays are God plays. The traditional drumming by torchlight reminded me greatly of performances of takigi noh - which is performed outside, at night, by torchlight.

In fact, the entire structure of the film is quite Noh-like: jo-ha-kyu refers to slow introduction, extended exposition of the transgression or disordering of the natural world, and quick/sudden resolution.

And THAT is what is so brilliant about both the novel and film: they are simultaneously Existentialist [i.e., Western philosophy] and utterly Japanese.

to the original poster:

i always looked at the myth of sisyphus as an allegory. so woman in the dunes is an allegory of an allegory? not sure if i agree with you there, but, yes, this film does share thematic simularities with myth of sisyphus.

read camus's essay on the myth of sisyphus, if you get the chance.

[deleted]