Pushkin

A warning before we start, this cautionary tale discusses death by suicide.

If you're suffering emotional distress or you're having suicidal thoughts, support is available.

For example, from the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline in the US.

Fargo is a town in North Dakota.

It's also a classic movie from 1996, the blackest of comedies.

A car salesman attempts to swindle his wealthy father-in-law by paying a couple of criminals to kidnap his wife and demand a ransom.

It ends up with five innocent people dead and one of the kidnappers trying to dispose of his partner's body by feeding it into a woodchipper.

Namously, the movie starts with these words.

This is a true story.

At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed.

Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred.

Fargo isn't a true story.

The shoot was well underway when the directors, the co-in brothers, casually mentioned this to the cast.

One of the movie's stars William H. Macy was taken aback.

He can't say it's a true story if it wasn't, said Macy. Why not, came the reply.

In the movie, one of the hapless kidnappers hides nearly a million dollars by burying it in snow.

It's a comically stupid idea.

The landscape's generic and featureless as far as the eye can see.

How will he ever find his way back to the spot?

He won't, and not just because he ends up in a woodchipper.

And none of the movie's other characters know the cash is there.

...