Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter * * * * *

I loved this film.  It was an absolute pleasure from beginning to end. It is written and directed by brothers Nathan and David Zellner; siblings who work collaboratively, somewhat like the Coen brothers. Now here’s a tip: If possible look again at the great Coen Brothers 1996 Film Fargo before viewing this.   

Kumiko has seen Fargo many times.  Many, many, many times. She has a VHS copy of it; how she obtained it, is in itself,  a beguiling  beginning to this whole saga.  Kumiko is quite convinced by the message at the start of Fargo announcing “This is a true story”.  So to Kumiko the thousands of dollars buried by the side of the road by one of the gangsters in Fargo must also be true.

The first part of the film is set in Tokyo and it is virtually like watching a Japanese movie with subtitles. Kumiko is a lonely office girl, but she prefers her loneliness, shunning the advance of old friends and trying to discourage the constant nagging phone calls from her mother.  She hates her job and her boss and goes home each night to a small unit where she keeps a pet rabbit and watches Fargo over and over again.  Studying it to determine exactly where, on the side of the road did Carl Showalter bury that money.   She puts a “plan” in place to go to America and claim the riches she knows are there.  “Like a conquistador” she explains to a bemused library security officer.

The second part of the film  titled “New World” is all  spoken in English.  It commences with Kumiko landing at Minneapolis airport and the road trip begins.  It is beautiful and crazy - a bit like her.  Her only money is a stolen credit card, she knows no one, speaks very little English, and commences to make her way to Fargo, and the treasure, in weather similar to that which was in the film Fargo  - minus 10c with snow blizzards. The people she meets along the way are  kind to her but their generosity and hospitality mean nothing: she is focused on her objective and nothing else.  David Zellner plays the gentle local cop and his genuine concern for her makes no difference. Toward the end we see her progressing wearing a bed quilt stolen from a cheap motel it’s multiple colours brilliant against the stark white snowscape (her conquistador armour?)  There are some truly stunning images in this film.

The last thing I would tell you is whether she reaches her impossible objective but it’s the journey that counts and what a magnificent journey Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter is.  To take a lead from a film as perfect as Fargo is a bold move, but with Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter Nathan and David Zellner pay worthy homage to the Coens and have created a superb film in their own right.
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