Hiroshi Teshigahara directed Pitfall (a.k.a. The Pitfall and Kashi To Kodomo), a Japanese film written by Kōbō Abe.
It was Teshigahara’s first feature, and the first of his four film collaborations with Abe, the others being Woman in the Dunes, The Face of Another and The Man Without a Map.
Unlike the others, which are based on novels by Abe, Pitfall was originally a TV play called Purgatory (Rengoku).
Pitfall is set against the background of labor relations in the Japanese mining industry.
The mine in the film is divided into two pits, the old and the new one, each represented by different trade union faction.
A mysterious man in white murders an unemployed miner who bears an uncanny resemblance to the union leader at the old pit and bribes the only witness to frame the union leader of the new pit.
The two union leaders go to the murder scene to investigate only to come across the body of the witness.
They blame one another and begin a fight which ends in the deaths of both.
The film ends with the man in white observing them before riding off on his motorcycle, satisfied his mission is complete.
Pitfall shows the realm of the dead as well as the living, as the ghosts of the victims look on, powerless to intervene in events and bring truth to light.
