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Pitfall - Masters of Cinema series [DVD]

Hisashi Igawa (Actor), Kunie Tanaka (Actor), Hiroshi Teshigahara (Director) | Rated: Suitable for 15 years and over | Format: DVD
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Actors: Hisashi Igawa, Kunie Tanaka, Hideo Kanze
  • Directors: Hiroshi Teshigahara
  • Format: PAL
  • Language: Japanese
  • Subtitles: English
  • Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Aspect Ratio: 4:3 - 1.33:1
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Classification: 15
  • Studio: Eureka
  • DVD Release Date: 21 Mar 2005
  • Run Time: 90 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B0006ZLD5U
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 84,432 in Film & TV (See Top 100 in Film & TV)

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Reviews

Product Description

Teshigahara's debut feature, Pitfall [Otoshiana], was the first of his collaborations with novelist/playwright Kobo Abe and composer Toru Takemitsu. Beautifully filmed in an abandoned, postwar coal-mining town in Western Japan, it is part social-realist critique, part unsettling ghost fable. Examining themes of alienation, workers' rights, and identity, Teshigahara and Abe's exotically strange film evokes the cinema of Antonioni, Resnais, the writing of Kafka, Beckett, Carroll, and the French existentialists. A wandering miner, looking for work with his young son, is pursued by a mysterious, silent assassin in a white suit and hat. As mistrust and killings spread through the barely populated, rundown mining community, ghosts of the dead appear, unheard by the living, yet imploring them for answers. Who is the man in white and why does he sow confusion?

Teshigahara coined the term "documentary fantasy" for this study of the powerless, impoverished worker in postwar Japan. Demonstrating a meticulous aesthetic — his father was an ikebana master and founder of the Sogetsu Foundation — Teshigahara's efforts with Pitfall earned him the NHK Best New Director award and the luxury of being released abroad. Over forty years later, The Masters of Cinema Series proudly presents Pitfall for the first time in the West on home video.

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Japanese New Wave Classic 13 Feb 2007
By HJ
A mysterious assassin kills political agitators in order to divide revolutionary and reformist factions within the miner's trade union. The ghosts of the assassinated wander the desolate landscape of the mining district in search of an explanation for their demise (physical & political).

As that synopsis might suggest this is an amazing film - a mix of film noir thriller, ghost story, Brechtian social realism, Cocteau-inspired surrealism and Antonioni-style existentialist angst, with a great avant-garde soundtrack "directed" by Takamitsu. Overall, the mix works very well, similar to other Japanese New Wave movies (especially early Oshima), with elements that made me think of many other films, from Schrader's Blue Collar to Wenders' Wings of Desire.

Because the film has political & historical depth, I found Pitfall much more interesting than Teshigahara's better known 60s cult period-pieces Woman of the Dunes & Face of Another (where "pop" style & allegorical contrivance became overwhelming).

This DVD edition is excellent, with a detailed booklet & informative audio commentary from Tony Rayns, explaining how the film evolved slowly out of prior radical theatre & television versions in the context of revolutionary events surrounding the Japanese political crisis of 1960.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellant movie 19 Oct 2008
By Mr. G. Sturdy
Not only is this possibly the best Teshigahara films, it's possibly one of the best movies ever made. Not that widely seen it's a modern-day (thi was made in the early 60s) thriller AND ghost story. The script is excellant, the acting above-par and the direction sublime. Anyone interested in Japanese cinema needs to have a copy of this in their collection. Eureka! Masters of Cinema have done a perfect dvd - possibly the best you'll find in the world at the present time (and yes that means better than the Criterion version!!). There's an ok commentary by Tom Rayns - a bit dull but with lots of useful information. A small but packed booklet is included.
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