CINEMA: Derek Malcolm
`THE story that follows is about Minnesota. It evokes the abstract landscape of our childhood – a bleak, windswept tundra, resembling Siberia except for its Ford dealerships and Hardee’s restaurants. It aims to be both homey and exotic, and pretends to be true.”
So says Ethan Coen, producer and co-writer of Fargo, in an introduction to the screenplay of the film which won Joel Coen, director and co-writer, the Best Director prize at Cannes this year. True or not – and the film is said to be based on a case of kidnapping in the state in 1987 – Fargo is the nearest thing the brothers Coen have accomplished to Blood Simple, the popular debut which forged their reputation.
There is, however, one vital difference. Fargo is a subtler exercise that seems to be in two minds about its characters. It is never certain whether to laugh at them or to treat them seriously. If this makes for an uneasy ride, it also gives the film its cutting edge as Frances McDormand’s heavily pregnant detective plods determinedly after her gormless suspects.
Perhaps it is McDormand (Joel Coen’s wife and one of America’s most distinctive screen actresses) who humanises the film, though the Coens’ ability to mix comedy with horror has often been admired before and their observation of character is well-known. Her performance is remarkable as she plays the comforting wife to a failed husband, has an encounter with an old flame and slowly catches up with her lumpen prey.
The film is beautifully shot by Roger Deakins in its wintry terrain and has excellent music from Patrick Doyle. Director Ken Loach makes us laugh at his characters without any sense of patronising them. Possibly the Coens go too far in Fargo to persuade us that Minnesota and its Scandinavian immigrants are a microcosm of America so enclosed as to be hilarious.
Yet, the film’s style matches and underscores its content so that there is hardly a false note. The Coens have often been accused of weightless resonance; of making films that look good but end up no more than tributes to a particular genre. The same accusation could be levelled against Fargo. But the Coen Brothers are among the most able practitioners in America and this film is one of their best attempts to turn a familiar genre – the True Crime drama – into something miles away from the ordinary.