Pitfall(M+ Screenings: In the World, Of the World)

A migrant worker, who looks exactly like the leader of a coal miners’ union, wanders into a desolate mining area and is soon killed by a mysterious man in a clean white suit. Unable to understand the reasons for his death, the man returns to the landscape as a spectre. Later joined by other phantoms as well as by his young son, the man bears witness to the man in white’s cruel, relentless mission, while remaining powerless to stop what is to come. Hiroshi Teshigahara’s first feature, a haunting ‘documentary-fantasy’ about industrial power, human alienation, and revolts against authority, was one of the first films released theatrically by the Art Theatre Guild and it marks the first of four films Teshigahara made in collaboration with modernist writer Abe Kobo.

35mm print courtesy of The Japan Foundation. © 1962 Sougetsu Foundation. All Right Reserved.