Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter

Kumiko works an office job in Tokyo and becomes fixated on an old videotape she finds on a shore: Fargo. She takes the based on a true story card at the front of it literally and believes the case of money buried in the snow is still out there. She quits her job and goes to Minnesota. There is a real story behind this, though not the one people assume. In 2001 a Japanese woman named Takako Konishi was found dead in North Dakota, and a legend spread online that she had been searching for the money from Fargo. Her actual connection to the place was different, and the legend grew out of a misunderstanding. Knowing this, the Zellner brothers chose not to depict the real person and invented a character instead. Rinko Kikuchi plays it almost entirely without speech. The best thing about the film is that it never makes her ridiculous. The obsession is not the joke; the absence of any way out is. Who it is for: viewers who like strange, melancholy independent film. Who it is not for: anyone wanting explanation and resolution.