Minimalist Moments: Fargo

‘A lot can happen in the middle of nowhere’

The tagline of the Coen Brothers’ sixth film creates a genius little bit of intrigue in one short sentence. It doesn’t give away any specific details yet nonetheless grabs the viewer’s attention; we have no idea about the myriad possibility of events that could take place, and we don’t know the specified location where these happenings will occur. Unless you knew about Fargo before the film, and also knew where precisely in the world it was. In which case, congrats. But even if you did, that’s immaterial, because not a single scene was actually filmed in Fargo, with most of the film being shot in Minnesota. The more you know, eh? The tagline also neatly summarises the film’s outstanding opening sequence, where the slow journey of a car through snow is complemented with a majestic, Odyssean grandeur through the use of the powerful orchestra of regular Cohen collaborator Carter Burwell.

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Travellin’ Tales: Harrogate

Harrogate is a lovely place to visit as it is, but it holds many a fine memory for me when my family used to drive up to visit my grandad in the holidays, and I managed to make a pilgrimage to his old house before we left. While I was slightly deflated that I wasn’t able to precisely locate some key landmarks at certain points (probably due to following family members around without paying due attention), I had a couple of friends to help me out. Here are some of the highlights:

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Strays – Trailer

Apparently the first trailer has been out for a decent while now (over five months), but the first time I heard about this joint was during the trailers for Oppenheimer. Hmm, I see a cute border terrier, and I hear Will Ferrell. Yay, it’s a mild-mannered comedy of some sort. I was, however, watching a 15-rated film at this time, so I probably should’ve known otherwise. The slow motion of the anthropomorphic pooch jumping through a sunny field was nonetheless endearing.

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