This Is a True Story

The Plot.

In December 2001 the world's media focused on the small town of Fargo, North Dakota, where the body of Takako Konishi was found in the woods by a hunter.

The media reported that she had left Japan with the misunderstanding that the Coen brother's "Fargo" really was a true story and that there was a stash of money hidden somewhere in the snow on a road by a tree.

This documentary traces the background to the story and finds that the media, quick to jump on a "funny" story of foolishness, had gotten the story totally wrong.

Only the story isn't true. Yes, the chick existed but she died outside Minneapolis not Fargo North Dakota!

She came to the US to kill herself and travelled around for a while.

The media made up the Fargo story.

This is all a bunch of bad bunk.

What a bore.

OK OK just an FYI.. Urban Legend!! Actually 'Fargo' legend came from a Police officer who admitted he did not Speak Japanese and see did not speak English.. Fact she had just came from Singapore were her American lover (from Fargo) had dumped her... check out the real story here: https://vimeo.com/66512803

But saying that .. this is a watchable and entertaining film.. a bit 'artsy' in filming anyone who enjoys dazzling imagery will love it!

But surly the writers had the real story.. perhaps being truthful and stating this was based on 'Urban Legend' or a end statement with some truth would have left this film more enjoyable without the bad taste left in my mouth... Great first watch.. after you research and discover the truth she was not looking for Fargo Treasure but instead was a heart broken woman heading to her lover's home town to commit suicide... you don't want to see it again.

Seems selling Urban Legend is more entertaining... 'commentary'

In December 2001 the world's media focused on the small town of Fargo, North Dakota, where the body of Takako Konishi was found in the woods by a hunter. The media reported that she had left Japan with the misunderstanding that the Coen brother's `Fargo' really was a true story and that there was a stash of money hidden somewhere in the snow on a road by a tree. This documentary traces the background to the story and finds that the media, quick to jump on a `funny' story of foolishness, had gotten the story totally wrong.

Almost everyone who has seen the film Fargo will have also heard the story of the Japanese tourist who froze to death looking for the money that was buried in the snow by the kidnapper in this supposedly true film. Many of us will have heard this as part of the `.and finally' or `isn't life funny' sections of the news - I know I did. However this overlooks the fact that someone did die, someone who had lived for 20 or so years until that point - even if she did die looking for money - it makes her gullible, but not a global joke of the day.

This film is immediately interesting as it looks beyond this story to find that this was not true. Konishi talks to a police man when she arrives in North Dakota and he mistakenly believes that she is looking for the money. However the truth of the matter is that Konishi had been to America several times in the previous few years and that witnesses who had given her lifts etc state that she seemed to know where she was going. A long distance phone call to Singapore the night before she died and a statement from her landlady about an American lover who had left her and moved to Singapore points to a more tragic and interesting tale.

This film builds the case for a young woman who had found happiness with a man in this area of America. A young woman who had been heart broken by the end of that happiness and seemed to be seeking some form of return to that feeling or closure by returning to somewhere she had been content for once. The film doesn't claim to have all the answers but does lay bare what it knows as facts - something the media never tried to actually do, they preferred the `kooky' story that it appeared to be on the surface. Interviews with friends and family and resident/officials of North Dakota who met her show that this is not connected to the film in any way and has been twisted to become a nice 3 minute feature on the news.

The film presents the story with a real weightiness that suggests it is more meaningful than it turns out to be, but it is involving because it has the respect to treat Takako Konishi with dignity and try to learn what she was about. She was not a kook or a film nut gone wrong, she was a person who's pain lead her to be found dead - alone in the snow from a mix of drugs and alcohol. The film cannot know what went through her mind but it can do a better job than the media. At times it's delivery is a bit poncey but it works quite well. Ohmori plays Konishi and manages to convey a form of silent personality without forcing the film out of the documentary mould and into a drama.

This film didn't change my life or have a huge impact - mainly because it isn't about wider themes it is only about one person. Konishi was made a joke out of - her death was a source of amusement and became an urban myth to be repeated as fact on the internet and throughout the media. Her story here is moving as it reflects a real person and not the image we have been fed by the news. Her story is sad as we know where it will end but I left the film feeling thankful that someone had honoured her life by at least looking past a 3 minute news slot and looking at a life lost and tried to understand why.

The media promulgation of a connection between Takako Konishi and the movie Fargo, I felt, was just too creepy. So it was a relief that I found this movie that purports to set right certain misunderstandings. This movie has been done in an interesting style. There are interviews with some of the actual people that interacted with Takako and some re-enactments, especially with the actress Mimi Ohmori who portrayed Takako. There are filmed scenes interspersed with a series of stills. It all held my visual attention throughout.

But now I have so many unanswered questions. Why was she going around with only a coat over her underwear without any kind of dress, skirt, pants or other clothing over her panties? A hurriedly left assignation? A recent rape attempt? Was that normal dress in the Tokyo she came from? Or in the milieu she was of in Tokyo at that time? Mention was made of her leaving her Shinjuku apartment at midnight and coming home around dawn. Just the kind of schedule to either visit host bars or to be working in the demimonde herself. She was young, attractive, and without local family support. Just the kind of woman often recruited by the Tokyo demimonde. She lived in Shinjuku. Anywhere near the red-light district Kabukicho?

Detroit Lakes, where she was found dead, is said to be the hometown of the American in Singapore whom she talked to by phone for 40 minutes the night before she died (not likely Singapore because of the filmmaker's privacy agreement with the American). She had been to the Detroit Lakes area a couple or more times before. Detroit Lakes has a population of less than 10,000. Someone must have seen the American and Takako together the times they previously visited. Either family or friends. What actually was their relationship? Was it professional. You know, escort and client? Lovers? A piece on the side? Just friends? Former lovers? How did Takako get the American's phone number in "Singapore"? Why didn't she travel to "Singapore" instead of Minnesota? Or did she before then coming to Detroit Lakes? What did that tree mean to her? He would have to have been with her for whatever the experience was. Was the tree the site of a night sky with a great view of the stars?

How did she and the American meet? Where? Roppongi? Shinjuku? Kabukicho?

Of course the filmmaker could possibly answer some of those questions: he tracked the American down and spoke to him but was sworn to maintain the American's privacy.

As an aside, when she was pointing to her stomach and saying something in Japanese to the policeman it could have been "Onaka ga tsuiteiru," (I'm hungry). That "...ga tsuiteiru," might remotely sound like "cancer" to someone unfamiliar with Japanese (GA TSui tEiRu). For that matter, that tree could have been on the road between Detroit Lakes and Fargo. Thus her mentioning "Fargo." If the policeman made her feel bad about going to Fargo ("Fargo?! The movie?!") She may have said "Maa ne" ("Maa ne 【マーね】 – Used when someone asks you a question and you have an answer that's bad so you don't really want to say. 'How was the test?' 'Maa ne'") which sounds a lot like "money." I'm just sayin'.

To commit suicide in the American's hometown was a form of passive-aggressive hostility. Or expression of deep, hopeless love by someone incapable of expressing such a thing any other way. Or both. Or both and more. Or neither. What do I know?

So, without input from the American even this movie, in its way, is as incomplete and inaccurate as the media hype about Takako's connection to the movie Fargo.