"A Russian man regularly travels through the towns and villages of Japan. He observes and listens to the conversations of ordinary Japanese people, looks at the cities, reads about the history of the country. Every time he goes back to Russia his thoughts are dominated by what he has seen. He has to break free of the dreams of Japan. But they are not figments of his imagination. The Russian traveller slowly but surely loses track of the distinction between the Russians dear to him and his Japanese partners in conversation. One day he decides to tell a story about his encounters with one of them, Umeno Matsujosi, a woman from the village of Aska.

"The traveller communicates all of this to us in his personal, cinematographic form, in which pictures of nature and portraits of the woman become intertwined with curious Japanese folk music and with the melodies of Tchaikovsky." - Alexandr Sokurov