Kofun, a late 60's art house enigma

I had originally seen this on tape through Something Weird Video. It was a nice widescreen, English dubbed version edited by Harry Novak, an exploitation movie pioneer whose films were like the late nite cable of its time -- softcore, grindhouse movies that were the stape of Times Square movie theaters. I can only imagine the reaction the patrons had. This remastered edition, barely an hour and fifteen minutes, comes with the original Japanese soundtrack. It is about a man who, during a student demonstration, is arrested for rioting, then escapes after assaulting the officer. Elsewhere, a woman is standing on the edge of a cliff near the ocean, contemplating suicide. The man, fleeing, encounters the woman and assaults her. For an interminable amount of time, we see the woman's desperate and ultimately futile attempts to escape his clutches. In gorgeous black and white (the last ten minutes in color), we see the two struggle on the black sands (or volcanic ash?), run, and roll down the hills in slow motion. You really wonder what the heck you are watching - is this is one long painful exercise in abstract filmmaking? The music is spare, at times jazzy, other times minimal and abstract, accentuating the inner turmoil of both characters, their isolation amid the barren landscape, and their fight against each other. After subduing her he builds a fire and handcuffs her to a tree. He finds a suicide note that she wrote, that reveals her distrust of everyone, betrayed by an apparent affair between her fiancee and her mother. The following morning she breaks free, and the cat and mouse pursuit continues. The police spot them from a helicopter, which leads to her rescue and his capture (the results are an interview which starts the film). The film ends with the woman having a desire to live and survive, and she ends up stronger than the man, who is left a spent shell. How could one interpret this? Perhaps by reflecting on the social conditions of late 60's Japan, and the pains that society took from casting off its traditional culture to a modern western dominated influence? Or a metaphysical struggle? Not easy viewing, and definitely not the "erotic" film that it clains to be. Viewers will get sucker punched, and end up reselling it. Those with more patience for such "art" will be rewarded, though will it be something you want to have?