A Masterpiece for The Nineties

Rating: 10/10 (1 March 1999)

The Coen Brothers peak in Fargo and will probably never be able to top it again (although how I wish them to prove me wrong). Taking a guessable plot and planting it into the imposing vastness of a North Dakota-Minnesota winter and coming up with a perfect cast, impeccable timing, unforgettable score (by Carter Burwell) and a world of everyday eccentricities, Joel and Ethan Coen create a gripping dark comedy that we often fail to see beyond the local news. And this is what great movie makers are all about, showing us things our perceptions remain short of imagining as we read, hear or watch them happening around. Fargo is a movie one discovers so many delightful details in its mosaic as one watches it over and over again and one gets awed how they all fall into their places in the great jigsaw. And that, my fellow filmgoers, is what a masterpiece is all about.