Written, edited, produced, and directed by Chloe Zhao (talk about a woman who fully owns her film), the movie is inspired by Jessica Bruder's non-fiction book of the same name, which I immediately got from the library after I finished watching this film. It tells the story of a fictional woman named Fern (Frances McDormand) who lived with her husband in the decidedly non-fictional town of Empire, Nevada. Empire was a company town for the United States Gypsum Corporation, but on January 31, 2011, the Corporation closed the mine and the town (their zipcode was discontinued by June). The residents all had to leave the town and when Fern's husband dies, she finds herself homeless and alone, and living out of her van. What follows is an epic mood piece as Fern tries to figure out what she's going to do now. While working a seasonal job at an Amazon factory, she meets Linda May, who tells her about Bob Wells, a man who promotes vandwelling and runs an annual gathering of vandwellers in Arizona where people can share tips & tricks on the nomad lifestyle.
Linda May and Bob Wells are actual people, playing fictional versions of themselves in this film, and all of that further adds to the blurry boundaries between real life and fiction throughout this movie. As I was watching, I remember initially thinking how those actors playing the vandwellers seemed so authentic and wonderful, only to discover oh of course, they are actual vandwellers who featured in Bruder's book and now in this film. But while Frances McDormand might be playing a fictional character, there's nothing fake about the heart and depth she brings to the screen. You only get her back story in bits and pieces, which is an effective narrative device to maintain the mystery around this woman and keep you invested in her journey. There is so much fierce pride as she resists all attempts from friends and family members to help her. There is so much grief as she contemplates her old life and her losses. There is so much love in every little piece of her van that she has retrofitted to become her new home. There is so much grit as she seeks out her fortunes on the road.
The tone of this film is extraordinary. At times, it is so bleak and unyielding. Fern works a number of odd jobs to support herself as she travels from town to town: these can include packaging items in an Amazon factory, cleaning bathrooms as the guest host at an RV park, or serving food in a roadside restaurant. But in the midst of that drudgery, there are moments of overwhelming joy, because she is out and about in America and experiencing the great outdoors, looking for dinosaur fossils at Badlands National Park or staring up at constellations in the night sky. Depending on the scene, her world can simultaneously feel so small and so big, and it's a wondrous thing to behold. And the people around her are also wondrous. A large part of the vandwelling philosophy is to stop waiting for retirement; instead of buying into the capitalist dream, these nomads are setting off for adventures before they die. They are mostly kind and generous and loving folk who have decided they'd rather be living out of a van instead of dealing with stuff and people. During a pandemic, that might be a philosophy we've all started to embrace.
Nomadland is slow and meditative but it sneaks into your soul. It is beautifully shot by cinematographer Joshua James Richards and I have never been more impressed by a cactus as I was in the glorious shots of desert sunsets. And of course, I kept getting stirred up the score: turns out it was written by one of my favorite composers, Ludovico Einaudi, so no surprise why that piano music felt like it was pouring directly into my heart. This was a beautiful movie that seeped into all the emotional corners of my being and gave them a good wringing out. It's hard to explain movies like these, so all I can say is give it a try. It might be exactly the kind of melancholy yet exuberant story you need to see right now.
No comments:
Post a Comment