THE SHELL COLLECTOR

A blind old man lives in solitary retirement, studying shells on a remote island in Okinawa. One day an estranged painter comes to his island. She is mysteriously cured of her rare disease by the sting of a poisonous shellfish. Hearing the news, a powerful local man from a nearby island demands that the old man apply the same treatment to his young girl, a shaman. She too is quickly revived from her coma. Rumors spread. The outside world descends upon the island in search of a miracle cure, seeing the old man as a saint. The desires and corruption of the mundane world shatter the old man's connection to the quiet beauty of nature. When his own son dies of shellfish poison, the old man gives himself up to the sea in hallucinatory reverie. Expecting death, he is saved by the young girl.