Review: Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter

by Trevor Kirkendall

★★½

One of my all time favorite movies is the Coen Brother’s 1996 masterpiece “Fargo.” Naturally, a movie coming out today that uses specific elements of “Fargo” as its own MacGuffin definitely piques my interest. And to do so in an inventive way helps further the idea that a wealth of original creative thought still exists if we, as moviegoers, take the time out to actually look for it. Unfortunately in this case, “Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter” stalls a little bit in the creativity department, but still ends up being a mostly enjoyable experience.

Rinko Kikuchi (“Babel,” “Pacific Rim”) stars as the title character Kumiko, a woman in her late twenties living in Tokyo where she works in a monotonous dead end job. That’s easily identifiable with about 80% of us, right? You don’t need to be fluent in Japanese to understand that, I’m sure. Kumiko is also enormously obsessed with finding buried treasure in the United States. She believes that the money buried in the snow by Steve Buscemi near the end of “Fargo” really happened and is just waiting for her to come find it. After all, “Fargo” does open with a disclaimer saying the film is a true story (even though it isn’t).

Kumiko refuses to believe that the story is fabricated and really wants to find this money. It’s an obsession that has ruined her social life and her work ethic. She says she’s like a Spanish Conquistador and will stop at nothing to find the treasure. As she travels to Minneapolis, no one wants to help her get to Fargo, where she believes her riches await. The depressing irony in watching this movie is that we all know the money hidden in the snow is as real as the bloody stump of a foot sticking out of the wood chipper in that infamous scene. Only Kumiko believes its there.

It’s actually a very depressing premise when you think about it. This same story probably could have been told under lighter tones and would have been just as effective and maybe a little more enjoyable. Instead, the script is written to be about as dark as humanly possible. It’s still fun to watch, but it’s a hard film to love.

Written by the Zellner Brothers – David and Nathan, and directed by David – “Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter” could be seen as a cautionary tale about what happens when our obsessions get the better of us. Kumiko’s work performance suffers, her social life is non-existent, and her mother barely speaks to her, all because she spends her evenings analyzing the scene where Buscemi buries the money.

It’s an interesting idea to address, and one we could all probably reflect on in our own lives. The biggest issue with the film is that Kuminko slowly becomes much more sympathetic than she is empathetic. She’s easily identifiable as the film opens, but as the film continues, she becomes more and more determined to the point where it’s almost insane. This makes you feel just plain bad for her. If a scene here or there had been cut down, the story may have ended before all empathy had been depleted.

The Zellner’s are also a bit heavy handed when it comes to their metaphoric imagery, especially in the film’s finale. There’s nothing wrong with a good metaphor here or there, but it should continually berate you to make sure you understood what they were trying to convey.

Kikuchi is spectacular in this role. She may have even topped her Academy Award nominated performance in the 2006 film “Babel.” She’s the only one on screen throughout the entire film and is able to command your attention in every scene. She holds herself in a timid and reserved posture, speaks softly and broken most of the time but stares her co-stars down with a focused intensity that says she doesn't care what they think about her dream. It is ,most definitely a thrilling performance to behold.

“Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter” is well done and well executed. I even appreciated all the small subtle nods toward the Coen Brothers cult classic as well. It’s just a hard movie to fully embrace as a stand alone film. It’s an interesting premise developed into a very interesting theme, yet somehow the translation into film is very much dark and brooding even while the landscape surrounding our hero is blindingly bright with the snowy Minnesota landscapes.

Review: Inside Llewyn Davis

by Trevor Kirkendall

★★★½

The latest from Joel and Ethan Coen is “Inside Llewyn Davis”, a look at the folk music scene in New York City in 1961, right before a certain young man began singing about how the answers, my friend, are blowin’ in the wind. The Coens film is a visually striking film, complete with memorable songs from industry legend T Bone Burnett and Mumford and Sons frontman Marcus Mumford. It also showcases the Brothers on the top of their game.

Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) is a folk singer. He called Greenwich Village his home, even though he just lives on other people’s couches on a rotating basis. And if you ask his friend Jean (Carey Mulligan), Llewyn Davis is an asshole. That’s because she’s pregnant and it might be his. Of course, it might be Jim’s (Justin Timberlake), her boyfriend and musical collaborator (they’re a singing duo themselves, and quite popular). She wants Jim’s baby but not Llewyn’s. So she needs to terminate it just in case it isn’t Llewyn’s. Which is why he’s an asshole.

Llewyn’s songs are good. He has representation with a very small manager, Mel (Jerry Grayson), but doesn’t earn enough money from him. Llewyn was in a folk duo earlier in his career, but his counterpart committed suicide, leaving Llewyn alone to continue on as a solo artist. Llewyn has asked Mel to send his new solo record to a manager in Chicago named Bud Grossman (F. Murray Abraham) who also runs his own club. He’s sure Bud will love his music and agree to manage him. He’s already set up Jim and Jean’s dorky friend Troy Nelson (Stark Sands) so how could he not like Llewyn?

After a recording session for an awful yet insanely catchy song that Jim wrote with Al Cody (Adam Driver), Llewyn decides to forgo the royalties and just take a lump sum check for the session right now. He ends up using the money to help pay for gas to ride along with one of Al’s friends, jazz musician Roland Turner (John Goodman) and his valet Johnny Five (Garrett Hedlund) to Chicago. There, he hopes to catch the attention of Bud Grossman and become the biggest thing in folk music.

This is vintage Coen Brothers material, from the story to its structure to the well-crafted handling of the filmmaking itself. And it’s as close to a musical as we’ve seen from them, so of course the music is phenomenal as well. The Brothers have made a career making films about gritty people that don’t just despise one another, but they hate themselves too. Llewyn Davis is this kind of character. “Inside Llewyn Davis” closely remebles the tone of their earlier film “A Serious Man”. One centralized character that isn’t very likeable. You would think that formula would make for a chaotic film, and left to any other filmmaker, it probably would be. But the Coen Brothers are right at home with this type of subject.

Are you supposed to love him or hate him? The Brothers don’t really give us anything to love about him, except maybe his music. He’s rude to just about everyone he meets. He doesn’t really care about the feelings of Jean, who he may or may not have put in a troubling situation. Although he feels she’s partially to blame, but who says that in this situation? According to Jean, an asshole would. Which is what Llewyn is.

The Brothers take another snapshot of life with this story. Only this time, they focus entirely on one individual. Isaac is on screen for every scene of this film, and he’s only missing from a select few frames. He performs all the music as well. Isaac succeeds in brilliant fashion by playing a character no one likes, yet is still trying to gain some of your emotion in process. There are a few moments when I found myself empathizing with him only to be slapped back into reality by a brash comment in the following scene.

The rest of the cast is filled out with people who attempt to balance out Llewyn, but to little success. Mulligan is fantastic in her role as Jean, a woman with a sweet folky singing voice and a smile to make men’s hearts melt when she’s on stage singing. Off state, she’s an angry woman cursing like a sailor whenever she’s around Llewyn. Timberlake as Jim is also wonderful in the role (which is becoming somewhat of a consistent critique of Timberlake; the man can act). He’s nice and loveable like Jean is on stage, but off stage he carries the same mannerisms. He’s hopefully and optimistic about life in general, something not usually seen in characters from films about 1960s America.

Some of the best moments in the film come during Llewyn’s drive from New York to Chicago with Goodman and Hedlund. Goodman is a Coen staple appearing in well over a handful of their films. He’s just as loud and boisterous as ever. It’s almost as if the Coens write these roles specifically for him (which they probably do). He’s as memorable as his previous Coen characters like Gale Snoats, Charlie Meadows, Walter Sobchak and Big Dan Teague. Only this time, he clocks very little screen time. I wish he would have had a larger presence in this film, but it’s not his movie. This is all about Llewyn and how he interacts with the people who enter in and out of his life. Roland Turner is just another blip on the overall life of Llewyn Davis.

“Inside Llewyn Davis” might not be the Coen Brothers masterpiece, but it is certainly a fascinating looks at the folk music scene of the early 1960s and the people involved in it right before it became a hugely popular genre of music. To me, the story is meant to be a reflective look on everyone in the audience to see how you may or may stack up next to the ambitions of Llewyn Davis.

He’s not a nice guy, but he’s got a dream. He wants to make that dream come true. He’ll use people, abuse people and step on anyone who gets in his way. Every one of us has a dream. Llewyn’s just chasing after his. What’s so wrong with that? The issue is not what your dream is, but how you go about attaining it. Many people get to where they’re going without being rude. Llewyn doesn’t understand that. In the end, he gets exactly what he deserves: an actual and at the same time metaphorical kick in the gut. This is the appropriate and perfect ending for Llewyn, and the Coens give it to him in a very smart way.