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Siskoid's avatar

Siskoid

Hiroshi Teshigahara's first feature, Pitfall, explores what it means to work in a mining town by way of an existential and supernatural crime drama. Blasting us with documentary footage of mining accidents early on, he reminds us that the business is rife with tragedy. As we follow a migrant miner as his young son enter an empty town, we recognize that communities sprouting around mines eventually become ghost towns when the ore runs out, and Teshigahara will play on that pun and fill the streets with ghosts in due course, implying a horrific fate for the dead. When the action moves to the almost procedural investigation of our miner's death - and the odd plot point about a doppelganger who may have been the real victim - I was at first displeased with the shift, but it's all part of the theme. This is, above all, a portrait of poverty and powerlessness, where evil or at least amoral forces act on the characters, pits them against one another, scrabbling in the mud for scraps (like terrible, unsafe mining jobs) to survive. And even that may be beyond them. Despite the supernatural elements, and the director's occasional, inspired, lyrical image superimpositions, this is as savage a piece of social naturalism as you'll find. Bleak, and yet, the absurdity of life does make it a wry and very, very black comedy as well.
4 years 7 months ago
Fish_Beauty's avatar

Fish_Beauty

The video essay on the Criterion release is worth its weight in gold.
12 years 2 months ago
akuma587's avatar

akuma587

Not as good as some of Teshigahara's other films, but some good landscapes and camerawork.
12 years 10 months ago
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