You might recall, back in 1996, the sensation that was the Coen Brothers’ movie Fargo. The stark, frigid, flat landscape of America’s answer to Siberia, otherwise known as, Minnesota and North Dakota, was the site of a story of violence and murder. In one brief scene, Steve Buscemi’s character buried some “treasure” in the snow, in a windswept rural area. Now, it’s the future, 2001 and a Japanese woman, Kumiko, has become convinced that she knows how to find the money buried in the movie. As we might recall, the lead-in to Fargo said that it was true (it wasn’t), but Kumiko knows that was a true story. What comes of this is Kumiko’s obsessive quest to get to Fargo and find the treasure. This movie was written and directed by David and Nathan Zellner, a brother team, although, unlike the Coens, they are not from Minnesota.
Initially, Kumiko finds a buried VHS tape on a Japanese beach and this triggers her quest for the treasure. She is 29 years old, an “office girl” for a patriarcal Japanse businessman, getting too old for this job, acting withdrawn and depressed, living in a squalid apartment and is being nagged by her possessive mother. She has no marriage prospects and is daily reminded of that by her boss and her distant mother. Her only companion is a caged rabbit. Like sucks for Kumiko. In an act of desperation, she uses her boss’s company credit card to book a flight for the US and begins her quest for the treasure. Landing in frigid Minnesota in the dead of winter, with her trademark red hoodie as the only thing to keep warm, Kumiko sets out hiking across the frozen waste. Fortunately she meets some pleasantly eccentric characters along the way. They don’t understand what she’s up to but do understand that she is completely unprepared for the vicious northern plains winter and could easily freeze to death in a short time. Whether Kumiko is vindicated to the people who think she is crazy, whether the money is real or not and whether Kumiko survives her trip are the crux of the story.
I thought this movie was pretty good, but not for everybody. It takes a long time for the story to develop. The first half of the movie plays out in Tokyo with a completely Japanese cast. The second part of the story, her quest for the money, was filmed in Minnesota and set in places much like those in Fargo. Characters in the US are also much like the supporting roles in Fargo, mostly decent, unsophisticated and definitely upper mid-west. What ties the two plots together is Kumiko, who is equally alien in both cultures, leaving one and coming to the other, but not communicating anywhere. Kumiko is played excellently by Rinko Kikuchi. The rest of the cast is unknown to me, all as good as they need to be, but there are no other noteworthy performances. I did like the cinematography, which, as Fargo did, created a frozen, windy world where Kumiko’s red hoodie makes her seem all the more vulnerable.
Is it a sequel to Fargo as some say? It uses the older film as a starting point, but since none of the characters cross over and the events are not related, I really would not characterize it as a sequel so much as an “original idea suggested by” sort of connection. Is it as good as the trailer says? The best-ever premier at Sundance? I don’t know that I would go that far. It’s good, well worth watching, with a fine performance by Kikuchi, but you have to be prepared for a slow beginning. Half of the movie is in Japan (subtitled), but when her quest really gets in gear, it does speed up a bit. Will you be happy with the enigmatic ending? I don’t know. I’m keeping my rating in the mid-range, mainly because of the slow beginning, which left me wanting some more action or plot movement. On the other hand, for a low budget indie flick, the production and image are excellent, as is the moody, mostly electronic soundtrack music.
