Movie Club—Fargo

This month the Movie Club will be screening Joel and Ethan Coen's Fargo, starring Francis McDormand, William H. Macy, and Steve Buscemi.

Car salesman Jerry Lundegaard (Macy) dreams of becoming rich like his father-in-law, Wade Gustafson (Harve Presnell), by investing in a parking garage development. To do this, he needs cash, and the best solution he can devise is to have his wife Jean (Kristin Rudrüd) kidnapped so that he can collect the ransom money, knowing that her wealthy father would more than willingly pay it for her safe return. To do this, he hires two career criminals, Gaear Grimsrud (Peter Stormare) and Carl Showalter (Buscemi). But things go wrong from the outset, and as the body count rises the events spiral out of Jerry's control. Pregnant police chief Marge Gunderson must use all her police cunning to bring those responsible to justice.

The film has garnered universal acclaim after its release, with the reviewing duo Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel crowning it the best film of 1996. It has maintained its status, given its unique characterisations, offbeat dark humour, and exaggerated local colour.

The film will be screened on Wednesday 14 September at 6pm at Narellan Library, Corner of Queen and Elyard Street, Narellan. Tea, coffee, and biscuits provided, but BYO snacks are more than welcome. Stay after the screening to share your thoughts about the film and join in a discussion about the many darkly humourous moments in the film.

Film Review—Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter

By day Kumiko (Rinko Kikuchi) works a menial administrative job. Her mother is over bearing, wanting her to move back home until she finds a man and has children, and constantly questions her about promotions. At work, her colleagues are all younger than her with perfect figures and bright carers ahead of them, and her former school mates are living the life her mother dreams for her. But by night Kumiko obsessively studies an old scratched video cassette of Fargo, wanting to pinpoint the exact place where Carl Showalter (Steve Buscemi) buried the briefcase of money. One day, after having enough of her oppressive life, Kumiko goes on an all or nothing trip to Minnesota to hunt for her treasure.

The links with Fargo are plentiful. From the amped up personalities of the characters to the bleak white of the Minnesota snow. The other worldly Minnesota gives the second half of the film a dream like quality in comparison to the stifling, tinted Japan. The cinematography alone tells the story, shifting from Kuniko’s dingy home life to the expanse of the wilderness until she becomes a lone ghoul searching the forest until her final, blisteringly white triumph. The interplay with Fargo, a film where the intersection of dreams has fatal results, is appropriately at the heart of Kumiko’s obsession and quest. The treasure, the fictional prize that for Kumiko must, at all cost, be real and found, becomes an object worth risking everything for, and in the end, it is only by sacrificing her all that the dream has any chance of coming true.

Disparaging and beautiful, Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter reveals the treasure of dreams and the dangers of following them.
Andreas