Beautifully shot and tonally precise, even as it - deliberately, I think - evades any single frame through which to easily view and understand it. Kumiko, 29 years old in Tokyo and going nowhere, becomes convinced that the suitcase buried by Steve Buscemi in Fargo really exists and sets off to Minnesota in the dead of winter in search of it; the film's far less whimsical than that description makes it sound, though it balances an ambiguous dreaminess with what I thought was a pretty compelling depiction of mental illness (also, it feels impressively like a Coen brothers film in its own right). Played - well - by Rinko Kikuchi, aka the Japanese actress who shows up everywhere - see also Babel, The Brothers Bloom, Norwegian Wood (a pretty good trio).
(w/ Trang and Meribah)
(w/ Trang and Meribah)
