"Woman in the Dunes": Teshigahara's 1964 Masterpiece, and Abe and Takemitsu's Too

How a collaboration of three masters made a timeless film

Eiji Okada in “Woman in the Dunes”

When I was growing up in Tokyo, my mother came home one afternoon raving about a strange Japanese movie she had just seen. Since she rarely went to movies and was indifferent to the ones she saw, her enthusiasm for an un-subtitled Japanese film got my attention.

“What’s it called?” I asked.

“Woman in the Dunes”*.

“What’s i…