Asahi Shimbun Morning Edition – July 17, 1999
It seems that the workings of the mind are increasingly exceeding the bounds of common understanding. Dr. Thomas Wehr of the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health, who proposed the bold theory that winter depression is caused by a lack of light and summer depression by high temperatures, visited Japan for the first time in ten years. We had the opportunity to discuss new treatments, and our conversation shifted to movies, a shared hobby. We both agreed that the Coen Brothers’ Fargo (1996) was an interesting film.
In the movie, the sales manager of a car dealership, who is also the son-in-law of the company president, hires a pair of thugs to kidnap his wife when he is on the verge of being caught for embezzlement. The plan quickly unravels, leading to murder. The setting is Fargo, North Dakota, a town buried in snow. The story is based on actual events.
A pregnant female police chief, eight months along and resembling tennis player Martina Navratilova, takes charge of the investigation. Even at a crime scene where three people have been killed in the snow, she calmly carries out her duties, as if to say, “My real job right now is to give birth.” In the middle of the investigation, she stops to buy worms for her husband, a struggling artist who enjoys fishing. She even has lunch with him at the police station. Still, the criminals are so careless that she quickly tracks down the suspects. This is not a suspense film. Accompanied by eerie music reminiscent of a Scottish folk song, it has a unique and peculiar atmosphere.
The film’s greatest charm lies in its depiction of people from completely different worlds intersecting through a crime while continuing their separate everyday lives. A mentally ill Japanese-American man, a former college classmate of the chief, suddenly appears in the story simply because he saw her on TV—completely unrelated to the main plot.
The movie seems to challenge the conventional mindset that “understanding” comes from knowledge. Frances McDormand, who played the chief, won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance.
The lack of coherence within a single individual is often seen as a problem. However, if one truly wants to maintain a sense of self, perhaps, like this police chief, one needs a source of support beyond work.
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