how old could this woman be? she didnt look so old. maybe it was b/c the movie was so dark
also, what exactly was her job?
Mid 30's.
She shoveled the sand and then it was transported up to the village. Remember ? At night only as she said the sand was more moist and easier to shovel.
didnt they notice there was sand all over the town? I dont think they need to go through the trouble of going all th eway into the hole and airlifting it out. the writers must have read camus
shareIIRC, they call her "obachan" which can, quite literally, mean "old lady/little old lady" but could just as well mean "lady". Japanese, however, may use a term like this arbitrarily as a name or title depending on the person in question's age relative to the speaker's. At least, for women, younger ones (20's-30's) are called "neesan" or "neechan" (lit. "sister") and, older, "obasan"/"obachan". I don't think there's any hidden meaning or derision in the term they are using, just maybe too literal of a translation.
shareNo offense, but were you paying any attention at all? The villagers didn't NEED sand. They took the sand away to help save the woman's house. They wanted to save the woman's house because they believed that if the sand swallowed up her house, it would swallow up the next house (and the next, and the next, and so on). They saw her work as necessary for the village, so when she worked, she got food and water rations. No work, no food/water. The villagers saw this as a good solution; when the insect collector suggests planting trees to stop soil erosion, the woman replies that the sand-moving operation is cheaper.
Also, I don't think she was intended to be too old. In the English-subtitle version I saw, they called her "aunt". It's not called "Old Woman of the Dunes" either.
>No offense, but were you paying any attention at all? The villagers didn't NEED sand.
Actually, you didn't pay much attention either. They DID need the sand because they were selling it to a construction company - illegally, so they needed someone like her to provide it. The woman was also doing the sifting job. Check the dialogue at 1h53m-1h.54m, shorter version. The whole thing was not mentioned in the novel, though.
...Another interesting detail: in the movie the woman says that it's "the village guild" that pays for the booze and cigarettes. In the book it's "the League". My edition has a footnote that says Abe meant this organization - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burakumin#Buraku_Liberation_League_and_the_Zenkairen - and the village people actually belonged to a caste of pariahs.