Kumiko The Treasure Hunter dir. David Zellner, UK, 2014
Kumiko is an "Office Lady" in Tokyo, a sort of glorified gofer to an unsympathetic manager. Kumiko's Aspergerish personality repels those around her as she puts barriers between herself and the reality of life. Whilst on a "treasure quest", she finds a VHS tape hidden in a cave on a lonely beach. After drying out the tape and watching it carefully, she believes that the tape is the key to finding a stash of hidden money, buried in a snowy landscape near the town of Fargo in Minnesota USA.
Based on an urban myth that sprung up around the true story of the very sad suicide of Japanese girl Takako Konishi in the American wilderness after her married American lover dumped her (see here), and the Coen Bros 1996 film, Fargo, this fanciful imagining of the tragic story of Kumiko is full of pathos and angst. As we watch Kumiko make one disastrous decision after another, we want her to wake up and see the truth for what it is.
Kumiko's depressed state, her fixation with treasure, with being the one to make an amazing discovery, and her lack of connection to other people, all add up to someone who is not completely stable, which leads her down a path of theft and fraud to achieve her goal. With an inability to connect with the well meaning strangers who try to help her or point her in the right direction, Kumiko singlemindedly and with a perceived urgency to get there first, risks everything.
With moments of great pathos, especially her interactions with the one being in her life that offers her comfort and connection, her bunny Bunzo, Kumiko's story is a sad and inevitable foray into tragedy.
4 stars
Kumiko is an "Office Lady" in Tokyo, a sort of glorified gofer to an unsympathetic manager. Kumiko's Aspergerish personality repels those around her as she puts barriers between herself and the reality of life. Whilst on a "treasure quest", she finds a VHS tape hidden in a cave on a lonely beach. After drying out the tape and watching it carefully, she believes that the tape is the key to finding a stash of hidden money, buried in a snowy landscape near the town of Fargo in Minnesota USA.
Based on an urban myth that sprung up around the true story of the very sad suicide of Japanese girl Takako Konishi in the American wilderness after her married American lover dumped her (see here), and the Coen Bros 1996 film, Fargo, this fanciful imagining of the tragic story of Kumiko is full of pathos and angst. As we watch Kumiko make one disastrous decision after another, we want her to wake up and see the truth for what it is.
Kumiko's depressed state, her fixation with treasure, with being the one to make an amazing discovery, and her lack of connection to other people, all add up to someone who is not completely stable, which leads her down a path of theft and fraud to achieve her goal. With an inability to connect with the well meaning strangers who try to help her or point her in the right direction, Kumiko singlemindedly and with a perceived urgency to get there first, risks everything.
With moments of great pathos, especially her interactions with the one being in her life that offers her comfort and connection, her bunny Bunzo, Kumiko's story is a sad and inevitable foray into tragedy.
4 stars