Fargo is a black comedy, maybe even a tragedy

Rating: 8/10 (24 July 2001)

In the beginning of the Coen brothers film Fargo a sign tells us that we are about to witness a true story. The sign fades to white and from within the white a car emerges. The car tows another brand new, light brown car on a country road covered in snow. The story, in its simplicity, is based on an authentic criminal case: A failed car dealer hires two villains to kidnap his wife in order to collect the ransom himself and thereby solving his economic troubles. But the kidnapping goes wrong and a series of innocent people get killed and soon the police is on his and his accomplices' tails. The man that tows the car is Jerry Lundegaard, the car salesman. He's on his way to meet the two villains, whom are the ones to kidnap his wife, in Fargo, North Dakota. The towed car is a down-payment of the kidnappning.
Carter Burwells musical score and the snow softly falling down contributes to amplify the fateful mood. The Coen brothers last film, The Hudsucker Proxy (called Strebern in Sweden) was a wonderful story with actors as Paul Newman, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Tim Robbins. The movie wasn't a success. At least not in the USA. Joel and Ethan Coen refers to the movie as "Coen brothers big flop" and doesn't deny that Fargo is a deliberate step into a new filmable manner, maybe to once get the home audiences approval. Fargo is a low budget movie without any stars and with a modest length of 93 minutes with which the Coen brothers finally have conquered the american audience.
Fargo is a kind of tragic comedy. Jerry Lundegaard is an average familyfather who once was every mothers dream that gets pushed around by his wife's father. The kidnapping is as much a way for him to solve his economical problems, as it is for him to speak his mind. When he decides to go along with his plan, it's probably the first in a long time that he takes an inititive. Gaer Grimsrud and Carl Showalter are the villains he hires. The one is the talkative, and you believe he will never end, and the other says less than 15 lines in the entire movie!
Together they make an odd couple that only argue when they talk to each other. They are extremely clumsy and it's sometimes hard to believe the ferocious and violent acts that are carried out by them. The people in Fargo aren't evil even though they do evil actions. They're not comedians but they end up in comic situations. The kidnappning is brutal but the events just before, during and after are extremely funny and it is hard not to laugh. Likewise when the hand over by the ransom money end up in a shooting; and instead of blood it's feathers that pour out. Marge Gundersen, the pregnant police officer that with her thick winter clothing looks like a penguin, is the antipole of Jerry Lundegaard. But Marge isn't a person that you laugh at. In difference to Jerry she knows exactly what she is doing and has no problem in dealing with the situations she encounters. Marge is more charming than comic and is no regular movie hero. It takes 40 minutes before we encounter her for the first time. It's the events before, that introduces her.
Fargo is a black comedy, maybe even a tragedy. The Swedish actor Peter Stormare makes a great performance as the strong silent smoking villain, Gaer Grimsrud. My advise is to see the movie.