I'm confused (Spoilers)

Rating: Null/10 (13 August 2004)

I really enjoyed this movie, but that's not what I'm writing about. There seemed to me to be a gaping hole in the premise of this script that I couldn't get off my mind as the story unfolded. This movie portrays a mini-society that is supposed to be totally self-sufficient. People live in their little village, the limits of which are strictly defined. No one goes in, no goes out, and the rest of the world is left to itself. But did you notice this group's standard of living? It would have been a prosperous rural village by late 19th century standards, with quite a few creature comforts -- window glass, china, good fabrics, boots, even some nice architecture in the main building. All of this could be explained away as original to the establishment of the village, I guess, but when we come into the story, at least a generation has passed since that time. Things should have been looking a little threadbare. After all, dishes break, clothes wear out, and so forth. If the villagers had no contact whatsoever with the outside world, how would these things be replaced? Even more so, what about all the consumables these people had? With the facilities available in the village, the people wouldn't have been able to provide themselves with coffee, white flour, kerosene or many other goods we saw.
Has the incongruity of this occurred to anybody else?