"Divide et impera" is an old game used by those with power against their subalterns. In "Pitfall", an employer who owns two mines has had to deal with one big union in the past. So, the employer conjures up a plan to divide his mine workers. He lays off some from one mine and doesn't layoff any at the other. The members of the one big union are supposed to come to each other's aid in solidarity when trouble with the employer erupts and this is one such occasion. However, when the miners of mine number one ask miners of mine number two for class solidarity in their strike to get lost jobs back, the miners of mine number two refuse and keep working as the employer has told them that they will not suffer layoffs. Bingo! The miners in one his mines have been pitted against the miners of his other mine, competing for what they think are a limited number of positions. The consequence is that the one big union splits into two competing unions. It's much easier for the boss to make deals with two small unions for they are weaker than one big union. Message to the employing class: divide and rule. Lesson for workers:unity.
What happens though when the employer wants to get rid of even those two unions, weakened by distrust, one for the other? The answer to this question is large part of what director Hiroshi Teshigahara's "Pitfall" is about. Teshigahara wasn't alone in creating this film. To be sure, "Pitfall" was also the work of author Kôbô Abe. In fact, "Pitfall" was originally a stage play by Abe. One must keep in mind when watching this film that both men were leftists, influenced by surrealism and it shows in the direction, screenplay, choice of music and cinematography. Both men saw how the social relations of capitalist class rule kept the producers weak, poor and in wage-slavery. Both also saw the existential theme of alienation between people which is part and parcel of the the system of wage-labor. But neither of them was about to produce a piece of nihilist fiction, which is what many reviewers of this film seem to think "Pitfall" is about. Teshigahara and Abe are depicting life under the rule of Capital and showing how it works to keep workers at each others' throats.
As the film opens, a father and his young boy wander a stark landscape in Kyushu, industrially pockmarked by mines and the scattered, wild remnants of a supremely indifferent Nature. This is an environment like our own, one which has suffered from the neglect of civilization's modern rulers. The father is a rootless proletarian in search of an employer and on the run because he has 'deserted'. The film's audience is never told what he has deserted from; but whatever it was, there are other workers who have deserted from it too. We know this because the father is being accompanied through part of the film by a fellow mine worker who is also on the run, a self-proclaimed 'deserter'. We also know because in one scene from a mine work-site a man is fallen upon by two other men, authorities who take him away after a scuffle. The miners who view this in a stunned, atomized silence agree: the man must have been a 'deserter'. The father's young son has been brought up as witness to the fact that authority can never be trusted. He has seen too many ordinary working people hurt in some way by people who wear the clothes and uniforms of officialdom. When he spies a man in a pristine white suit riding through the mining town on a motor scooter, the only motor vehicle around which isn't a truck, he hides.
The father, his son and their companion, the other mine worker, leave one job secretly in the night and go on the road to look for another. They fear discovery as 'deserters' as their employer seems like he might be catching on. No chances can be taken. Both land a job at another mine site some distance away and it looks to be a good job too. The father has always dreamed of working for a union mine and of the better, more comfortable and secure life this would mean. This one's not bad; but one of his supervisors tells him that a new boss awaits him at another mine with an even better job and so he and his son take off on foot with a simply sketched map in hand.
However, the new mine doesn't seem to exist. Instead, the father is led by the written map given to him by his former supervisor to an abandoned mining town where only one person lives, a woman who owns a candy/trinket store. The woman is as isolated and lonely as the father. She too is waiting for something, a letter from her ex-lover, a summons to a better place. In the course of their conversation, we find out that the ghost town has been abandoned because of all the mining accidents which have happened. Unsafe working conditions have their consequences. Still, the father wonders what went wrong with the directions he got from his old supervisor. He's sure that he's in the right place, the one given to him on a piece of paper by foreman of the mine he just left. The candy store owning woman suggests that he might be looking for another mine, just over the hill.
Be prepared for ghosts, doubles and dastardly planned murders most foul. Be prepared to see and even hear (in a jangling musical score) a movie which will intrigue and surprise and may cause you thereafter to continually question the motives of your rulers: divide et impera.
What happens though when the employer wants to get rid of even those two unions, weakened by distrust, one for the other? The answer to this question is large part of what director Hiroshi Teshigahara's "Pitfall" is about. Teshigahara wasn't alone in creating this film. To be sure, "Pitfall" was also the work of author Kôbô Abe. In fact, "Pitfall" was originally a stage play by Abe. One must keep in mind when watching this film that both men were leftists, influenced by surrealism and it shows in the direction, screenplay, choice of music and cinematography. Both men saw how the social relations of capitalist class rule kept the producers weak, poor and in wage-slavery. Both also saw the existential theme of alienation between people which is part and parcel of the the system of wage-labor. But neither of them was about to produce a piece of nihilist fiction, which is what many reviewers of this film seem to think "Pitfall" is about. Teshigahara and Abe are depicting life under the rule of Capital and showing how it works to keep workers at each others' throats.
As the film opens, a father and his young boy wander a stark landscape in Kyushu, industrially pockmarked by mines and the scattered, wild remnants of a supremely indifferent Nature. This is an environment like our own, one which has suffered from the neglect of civilization's modern rulers. The father is a rootless proletarian in search of an employer and on the run because he has 'deserted'. The film's audience is never told what he has deserted from; but whatever it was, there are other workers who have deserted from it too. We know this because the father is being accompanied through part of the film by a fellow mine worker who is also on the run, a self-proclaimed 'deserter'. We also know because in one scene from a mine work-site a man is fallen upon by two other men, authorities who take him away after a scuffle. The miners who view this in a stunned, atomized silence agree: the man must have been a 'deserter'. The father's young son has been brought up as witness to the fact that authority can never be trusted. He has seen too many ordinary working people hurt in some way by people who wear the clothes and uniforms of officialdom. When he spies a man in a pristine white suit riding through the mining town on a motor scooter, the only motor vehicle around which isn't a truck, he hides.
The father, his son and their companion, the other mine worker, leave one job secretly in the night and go on the road to look for another. They fear discovery as 'deserters' as their employer seems like he might be catching on. No chances can be taken. Both land a job at another mine site some distance away and it looks to be a good job too. The father has always dreamed of working for a union mine and of the better, more comfortable and secure life this would mean. This one's not bad; but one of his supervisors tells him that a new boss awaits him at another mine with an even better job and so he and his son take off on foot with a simply sketched map in hand.
However, the new mine doesn't seem to exist. Instead, the father is led by the written map given to him by his former supervisor to an abandoned mining town where only one person lives, a woman who owns a candy/trinket store. The woman is as isolated and lonely as the father. She too is waiting for something, a letter from her ex-lover, a summons to a better place. In the course of their conversation, we find out that the ghost town has been abandoned because of all the mining accidents which have happened. Unsafe working conditions have their consequences. Still, the father wonders what went wrong with the directions he got from his old supervisor. He's sure that he's in the right place, the one given to him on a piece of paper by foreman of the mine he just left. The candy store owning woman suggests that he might be looking for another mine, just over the hill.
Be prepared for ghosts, doubles and dastardly planned murders most foul. Be prepared to see and even hear (in a jangling musical score) a movie which will intrigue and surprise and may cause you thereafter to continually question the motives of your rulers: divide et impera.