Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, and usually it’s sadder. Brothers David and Nathan Zellner had already begun work on fictionalizing the “true” tale of a young Tokyo woman thought to have died looking for the suitcase of money that was buried in the Coen brothers’ Fargo—when they found out that wasn’t quite the case. Takako Konishi had died of exposure in the snow, but she did so intentionally, as was revealed in a suicide note she penned to her parents. Why had she traveled halfway around the world to do it? It was over an American man she’d met in Japan who hailed from Fargo.
Marjorie Skinner is the Portland Mercury's Managing Editor, author of the weekly Sold Out column chronicling the area's independent fashion and retail industry, and a frequent contributor to the film and... More by Marjorie Skinner