The director of Woman in the Dunes would be Hiroshi Teshigahara, who had found his cinematic muse in Kōbō Abe’s writings. This was just two years after he adapted Abe’s novel. He returned to the works of Abe for his subsequent film, The Face of Another. However, this was not much a smooth path for Teshigahara as he made one film in 1972 and would then abandon cinema for almost ten years. Other things that he did include calligraphy, pottery and flower arrangement (he learnt ikebana from his father who was a master). Filmmaking once again lured him back but he never came close again to this high period when it all clicked perfectly between him and the material. Western reviewers panned most films on their release but have since experienced a renaissance in critical reputation.
In this movie, Mr. Okuyama is an engineer whose face becomes deformed during an industrial accident. At present, there are bandages all over his face protecting whatever is left of it. As such, he has been isolated and gloomier than ever before. Consequently, Okuyama’s therapist suggests that if the patient can develop a prosthetic mask he will be able to reintegrate into society becoming emotionally stable again.
Okuyama and his doctor give a person 10k yen to make use of his face as a mold for the mask foundation.
Without alerting anyone about the arrival of the mask, Okuyama adopts a second life by using this new face. Only few people other than his wife know him as someone who is always on business trips. The only person who somehow realizes that he is different from before is the retarded daughter of the apartment housekeeper. His psychiatrist sees in these masks nothing short of mass production system which can eliminate any social ethics. His client wishes to take this idea even further, and soon enough, things begin to go wrong.
The whole film is a parallel story that never intersects with the main narrative. In Abe’s novel, this story is represented by a film that Okuyama goes to see at the theater. The young lady conceals facial disfigurement using her hair. She works amongst several WWII veterans in a Psychiatric ward of a hospital and resides with her big brother. There is mention of her being from Nagasaki, which implies the burns could have resulted from an atomic bombing or some other aftermath of it. More so than Okuyama who lived alone, Woman worries about another war breaking out in this world and she feels completely detached from it. Her account remains separate but comments on Okuyama’s one.
The themes in Teshigahara’s work are comparable to those of contemporaries such as Antonioni and Bergman. There is a tendency for the artists to be concerned less with the veracity of their narrative but with the psychological burdens that afflict their characters instead. This piece works both as a frightening tale and an ordinary play. Nonetheless, Teshigahara seems conscious about this fact; therefore he decides to incorporate some horror elements into his movie concerning identity, such as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde & The Invisible Man. Okuyama’s bandaged face and suit allude to the recent film in which a man loses his mind through being made anonymous by losing his face.
The weird and intense atmosphere is conveyed through the starting credits. The eerie sinister electronic score featured a waltz-like tune to it. It reminded me of the music theme for The Addams Family, which was astonishing. It’s an awfully creepy sounding soundtrack that sets us into Okuyama’s mind. He has a distorted view of life; he hears that in his composition. In the beginning, you can hear part of Hitler’s speech thus reminding its audience that WWII is still haunting them today. The movie turns out into a meditation on festering and twisting trauma until it becomes so fully contaminated with evil that nothing more can be done about it.
The way the film is shot adds to this confusion. There are moments when images flicker across our eyes at a remarkable pace. We see x-rays. Jump cuts and sudden zooms make us lose sight of who we are looking at: sudden close-ups. Editing that is intentionally stuttered leaves us uneasy. Teshigahara also shoots in 4:3 ratio which was a throwback to a form that had dropped out of favor in favor of sweeping vistas like those in Cinemascope It’s both backwards and forwards forms, resulting in something that feels profoundly surreal.
Some sets have glass walls with anatomical diagrams etched into them as well. This creates an openness we can see through everything, anyone, any situation… But it also disorients us about the space. All of these rooms feel cold rather than warm, sterile as opposed to cozy because they evoke medical facilities, and remind many people of their fear when they think about going to the doctor or ER room (for instance). There’s reflectivity here too which also contributes to layering identity. In one scene Okuyama walks into a mirrored room surrounded by mirrors themselves leading him inside another mirror again
Tragically, it is this idea of double that culminates in the conclusion. He therefore goes around Okuyama enjoying being a new person who meets people who know him well as their friend, workmate or husband without them knowing that he’s someone they know. I would suggest John Frankenheimer’s Seconds if you were to pair this film with another for a double feature. Besides being released in the same year, both movies deal with what happens when the identity of the main character is discarded and substituted by other faces. It may appear to be an escape from mistakes which cannot be changed. Nevertheless, once these heroes come face to face with their new faces, they find it hard to cope; it shatters their sense of self leading them into insanity. The Face of Another is a beautifully made psychological horror film that deserves more attention than it currently has.
For more movies like The Face of Another (1966) visit solarmovie.
