absurd

This film has noteworthy qualities—it is, for example, photographed with considerable elegance and an outsider's-eye regard for landscape and texture, and Rinko Kikuchi (an Oscar nominee for her arresting, silent performance in Babel) is obviously highly committed to her role—but it did not connect with me. In my estimation, it never coheres into a satisfying motion picture; it is more a thinly-sewn-together string of moods and droll sketches, which mutes the intended emotional impact.

And the enterprise itself made me a tad uncomfortable. It is inspired by a secretary who traveled to America in 2001 to commit suicide. After her death, a prior misunderstanding coupled with media sensationalism gave rise to an urban legend casting her as a naive Japanese waif who believed the events in the film Fargo were real and came in search of loot buried in the snow. This film dramatizes the urban legend, and part of me feels it exploits mental illness for its relatively limited, twee purposes.

C+