Lee, a Korean screenwriter living and working in Japan, struggles to write a love story between two young people who meet on a beach. She finds refuge in the mountain inn of a seemingly rustic middle-aged man who is haunted by his own mistakes and guilt. Sho Miyake, one of the most important directors in contemporary Japanese cinema, adapts two different mangas by the iconic Yoshiharu Tsuge and ingeniously combines them in a film that begins with the flair of an experimental essay on the eternal tug-of-war between thought and language, gradually evolving into a sensitive, unusually warm study of lonely souls and the need for mutual understanding. The film won the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival.