Woman in the Dunes (Criterion Collection)

"One of the 1960s' great international art-house sensations, Woman in the Dunes was for many the grand unveiling of the surreal, idiosyncratic world of Hiroshi Teshigahara (The Face of Another). Eiji Okada (Hiroshima mon amour) plays an amateur entomologist who has left Tokyo to study an unclassified species of beetle found in a vast desert. When he misses his bus back to civilization, he is persuaded to spend the night with a young widow (Kyoko Kishida) in her hut at the bottom of a sand dune. What results is one of cinema's most unnerving and palpably erotic battles of the sexes, as well as a nightmarish depiction of the Sisyphean struggle of everyday life-an achievement that garnered Teshigahara an Academy Award nomination for best director. Includes four short films from the director, documentary on the director and novelist Kobo Abe's collaboration, original trailer and essay by film scholar on Audie Book on 2 DVDs or 1 Blu-ray Disc. 1964/b&w/147 min/NR/fullscreen.