The Village

The film is set in Matsuo, a remote farming village in Iwate Prefecture in northern Honshu. On a snowy March evening, a youths' association, made up of local twenty-somethings, is visited by Hideko (Chieko Baisho), representative of a non-profit, Tokyo-based theatrical troupe. Hideko proposes that the group sponsor a performance of their touring musical, "Native Village." Staging the single performance, as well as paying for the troupe's transportation and boarding expenses, isn't cheap. Hideko tells them frankly that costs will run about 650,000 yen (several thousand U.S. dollars). If the show loses money the youths' association has to make up the deficit. Though the group, led by its ineffectual president, Takashi (Akira Terao), takes an immediately liking to Hideko, it's also dubious of the huge financial responsibility. More than 800 tickets will need to be sold all in a tiny village of mostly rice farmers and unemployed miners.