Fargo

If ever there was a movie to deglamorize crime, this is it.

Fargo opens with Jerry Lundegaard driving through a near white-out pulling a flatbed trailer to an epically tragic soundtrack. The thing on the trailer might well be a coffin instead of a tan Sierra. This sets the tone for the whole movie.

Dante’s Inferno is often criticized because the Devil is far more interesting than God. A lot of stories about the fight between Good and Evil have this problem, and the usual cure is the anti-hero, like the Dark Knight (Batman).

You won’t find that in Fargo.

Good in this movie is ordinary people doing ordinary things, epitomized by Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand), seven-months-pregnant Chief of Police. Ordinary life in this movie is really....ordinary. It's about things like eating lunch, shovelling the drive, making breakfast for your wife before she heads off to a crime scene, checking into a hotel, and jumpstarting the car.

Think the homespun, quiet life of the local yokels is boring? Try spending some time with criminals Gaear Grimsrud (Peter Stomare) and Carl Showalter (Steve Buscemi). They are holed up in an unheated cabin, eating TV dinners. One of them barely speaks and the other one won't shut up. Their kidnap victim (Kristin Rudrud) is hooded and bound and reduced to a token to be redeemed for ransom money.

In a brilliant scene the camera flips faster and faster between the silent and slack-jawed Grimsrud, the dehumanized victim, Showalter cursing and banging on the TV trying to get reception, and the snow and white noise on the TV itself. And just when you have had enough of that the camera moves seamlessly to the Gundersons, snuggling and dozing in bed. Unless you are a real masochist, my bet is you would rather snuggle up with the Gundersons than hang out with Grimsud and Showalter, much less be their victim. This perfectly illustrates the message of Fargo, which Marge sums up at the end for Grimsrud (which I won’t share here in case you are one of the few people who have not seen this movie yet).

The appeal of this movie is the character development. You may not like the characters but you will find them fascinating to watch. The acting is so good that Steve Buscemi will forever be known as “the funny looking guy” and Peter Stormare has a band called The Blonde from Fargo. (Look him up on IMDb. He is a totally different person when he smiles.) And it’s not just the acting, it’s the characters themselves. No cliches.

Character is what drives the plot in this movie and not the other way around, unlike most of what comes out of Hollywood passing for entertainment. Fargo’s outcome is inevitable but not predictable.

There are lots of great shots in this movie. An overhead shot of a snow-covered parking lot dotted with trees in diamond shaped planters would be perfect as a print for curtains. Stark images of the white and empty Minnesotan winter abound. What does it represent? Well, you can figure that out for yourself.

I want to avoid commercial successes (because, let's face it. you've heard of them and probably seen them) but Fargo is just too good and fits the bill too well to overlook. It is timeless. I was thrown a bit by the CRT TVs and landlines and 90s hair because otherwise this movie isn't dated at all.

Jah, Margie.

On IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116282

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The Fountain

The Fountain is my favourite movie of all time. I have watched it several times, and it makes me cry every time. It’s appeal has not worn off.

The first time you watch the movie it is a bit hard to follow. It helps if you know that there are three parallel stories going on. The first is a novel that Izzy (Rachel Weisz) is writing, in which Queen Isabel of Spain has sent Conquistador Tomas (Hugh Jackman) to find the Fountain of Youth for her. It will save her from the Inquisition, which is taking over Spain. She gives him a gold ring and promises that they will be together, like Adam and Eve, when he returns from his mission.

The second story is set in present day. Dr Tommy Creo is desperate to find a cure for the brain cancer that is killing his wife Izzy. So desperate the he alienates his colleagues and neglects Izzy. He refuses to accept her fate.

The third story is a continuation of the first, set in the future, in which a virtually immortal Tommy Creo, in a bubble-like spaceship, is trying to resurrect Izzy. He has abandoned science for spirituality, and this is an all-or-nothing quest. It is his last resort.

Tommy has his own quest in each storyline, but Izzy has given him another one: to finish her novel. This request plagues him. He doesn’t know how the story ends.

If you can’t follow the story very well on first viewing, you can just sit back and be dazzled by the visual beauty of the film. Everywhere is golden light - lamps, candles, stars, sparks from welding, torches, sunrise. Tomas/Tommy is perpetually in gold-lit gloom. Brilliant daylight is available to him, and Izzy goes toward it, but not Tommy.

There are also repeated motifs: the straight line of roads and highways (watch for the crossroads); the stylized flower pattern/Mayan depiction of the star Xibalba; the fine hairs on the back of Izzy’s neck; the wedding band that Tommy loses while scrubbing up for surgery. If you are an English student and you want to analyze symbolism, this movie is rich with it. 

The love between Isabel/Izzy and Tomas/Tommy is profound and unshakeable. It is romance without mushiness or melodrama - the kind that the kid in the Princess Bride would find acceptable, despite some kissing. Watch it with someone you love.

And yes, Hugh Jackman can act.

On IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0414993/

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