Passionate events of the human heart are the stuff of instant folklore and song in this beautiful, gentle film set on the Okinawan island of Aguni, where young Nanako returns to visit her grandparents after a sojourn in Tokyo. Grandmother Nabbie has been acting strangely with a pot of bougainvillea flowers ever since the white-suited elderly gentleman Sun Ra arrived on the island, stirring rumor and anxiety among the villagers. The choice every young person on Aguni faces, today as well as sixty years ago, seems to be between love and the need for continuing the family line, as dictated by the flamboyant female shaman. This serene film subtly explores the tension between Tokyo life and the surprisingly multicultural island life of Okinawa, as Nanako unravels the mystery of her grandmother's passion and absorbs its lessons for her own future. Almost every scene is graced with the sad, bawdy songs of the sanshin (jamisen), the stringed ancestor of the Japanese shamisen.- Frako Loden