A few years ago I bought a 4-DVD set by the Criterion after I read an article on the Senses of Cinema website regarding him. They list a lot of overrated directors under their "great directors" section (Ozon, Haneke....) that's in addition to the universally overrated ones (Godard, Pasolini, ....); but Teshigahara is a director with an interesting vision and worth being listed there. He can't be listed as great maybe because he didn't do that many features movies, and most of his work was never released. In fact the Criterion 3-film set and the later released documentary (Gaudi) are the only decent DVDs out there. Later movies -supposedly good work- may be found on ebay or amazon but with universal reviews complaining about their horrible transfer quality.
Teshigahara was a Japanese designer, painter, and architect before he tried movie making. His most famous work is an adaptation of a Japanese novel, though the narrative and the setting has not that much to do with Japanese culture (unlike Ozu's): An entomologist (in the middle of an identity-crisis-like state) is trapped in a weird -almost surreal- place alone with a strange woman who uses him to shovel the sand that keeps drowning her house (from the surrounding dunes).
For me it was a nice surprise watching a great Japanese post-modern work that is at the level of the European work of Antonioni and Bergman of the same era. In the trailer notice the distinguished soundtrack (reminded me of Persona, Hour of The Wolf, En Passion....). His visual style is very similar to Antonioni's with attention to details and close-ups on objects but unlike Antonioni, the characters here are allowed to express themselves through inetersting monologues and dialogues.
I found this very interesting video essay on Youtube (also in Criterion)
I highly recommend exploring this movie, the best of the 3 films presented by Criterion.
