MovieChat Forums > Ófærð (2017) Discussion > Coen Brothers 'Fargo' influences?

Coen Brothers 'Fargo' influences?


Just watched all ten episodes of this series in one sitting and I thought it was brilliant in respect of storyline, cast and production values. It would be great if they could come up with an imaginative and novel second series. I thought I saw a few Coen Brothers 'Fargo' influences on the series. Some of these include the enthusiastic younger junior female police officer who is very keen to solve the crimes and has her own unique insights to what was going on, the scene where the Lithuanian criminal escaped with handcuffs on reminded me of a similar scene in Fargo series 1, except the police officer was not murdered, a body dismembered with some kind of mechanical device and a retired senior police officer figuring strongly in the storyline. There was a similar general ambience with the snowscape scenes of roads and houses but that is obviously Iceland at its noire best. You obviously can't take the similarities too far because they are both essentially police procedurals but it was fun seeing some connections showing that these writers must all look at each others' work.

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You are quite right.. First thing I thought of was Fargo. Snow, similar music, pace and characters. Liked it from the first minute!

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Thanks for responding FilthyRicher and I'm so glad you agree. It was a great series.

"Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book" Cicero

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Are you referring to the Coens movie or the independent Fargo series? Of course the latter pays homage to the former, and the former itself pays homage to all these 70s / 80s Scandinavian trapped-in-ice crime thrillers and novels, so it's a full circle.

Also, there's some Bron/Broen season 1 influence as far as setting the tone up with the brutal murder with undecided origin, and the small-town-meets-evil has some spiritual connection to the Fargo TV series season 1, and maybe just a subtle bit of Twin Peaks season 1. Which also features scandinavian ppl. :)

So many full circles here, and all of them are quality jobs.

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