It has been praised by critics at all the festivals where it has been screened. It is emerging as one of the strong candidates in the list of best films of the year, in the next major awards.
Directed by Chinese filmmaker Chloé Zhao , who debuted in 2015 with the film Songs My Brothers Taught Me about the lives of two brothers on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and later released in 2017 The Rider, about an American rodeo star who embarks on a journey to find himself. Both films received rave reviews and did very well on the independent film circuit, winning several awards.
The filmmaker has remained true to her independent style, and Nomadlnad is also a film in the spirit of independent filmmaking, making it a perfect film for festivals and eligible for numerous awards. Nomadland is not a commercial film or for the enjoyment of the masses, for a large part of the audience that goes to the cinema looking for entertainment, this is not the ideal film for them.
Its road to success has already begun, Nomadland won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, received the Audience Award for Best Film at the Toronto Film Festival, the Best Director Award from the New York Critics Circle and also from the Los Angeles Critics Association. The Chicago Critics Association honored it with five awards, including Best Film, Best Director and Best Actress. The Boston Critics Association awarded it Best Picture, Best Director and Best Cinematography. It is already one of the favorites to be nominated in the main categories of the upcoming Golden Globe and Oscar awards. There is no doubt about it.
The director has been hired by Marvel to direct Eternals, one of the upcoming films in the superhero franchise, based on Jack Kirby's comic book that will feature big Hollywood stars like Angelina Jolie, it is a totally commercial film and I am very interested in how this Asian director, more used to the independent film style, will face this challenge. Will he have creative freedom? I am surprised by his choice to direct a Marvel Phase 4 film because all his films have had his personal stamp, they are stories with marginalized characters, in a constant search about themselves?
What is the story that Nomadland tells us?
After the economic depression, many industries had to close their doors. Fern loses her job at the industrial conglomerate Empire, in Nevada, where she had a house with her husband. Shortly thereafter, her husband passes away. With the still latent pain of having lost everything, she decides to use her van as a home and live itinerantly on the roads of deep America, where she will meet and make friends with other people like her, with different stories, pasts and personal tragedies, but who have in common to find freedom and cope with the sorrows with the lifestyle they have decided to lead, the modern nomads.
It is ironic that it is a Chinese filmmaker who shows us a side of America that is not usually seen in Hollywood films. There is no room for glamour, it is a very real story, with characters taken from the harshest reality, with a style almost similar to that of a documentary, we are told Fern's experience and with it we will know the story of thousands of American citizens victims of the economic crisis.
How does one cope with loss? Not only the loss of economic stability, but at the same time for Fern it is the loss of her husband, of everything that had meaning in her life. She opts for solitude, the best faithful companion in the hardest moments of our life.
Fern has lost everything, her job, her home, her husband. But she still has a home, her truck, which she has fitted out to make the most of every space, in that mobile home she keeps everything she has left in her life, memories of her parents, photographs, her wedding ring and the conviction to remain faithful to the new life she has chosen.
She keeps herself in itinerant jobs, one season as a packer in the Amazon, another season working for theme parks in the desert, doing jobs in camps for nomads like her and even in fast food restaurants. That constant activity, having to travel thousands of miles, without a fixed destination, is what brings her comfort and a kind of freedom, which she needs in order to keep on living.
During all his travels and work, he will meet many people, he will make friends with other nomads, some of them will tell him about their experience during the years they have lived this way, others will confess their fears, tragedies and sorrows. They are all human beings who have suffered some loss, all have been victims of the system, for them, who were born in America, the American dream seems a utopia.
Not even the possible opportunity to rebuild a new life, with a man who seems to be quite interested in Fern, will convince her to change course. She has made up her mind, she no longer needs the comforts of a traditional home, she doesn't mind having to do small and precarious jobs. She no longer has anything to lose and in the solitude of her van, she has found her destiny.
The film achieves more veracity, by using real nomads, such as Linda May, Charlene Swankie and Bob Wells who appear in the film, representing some of the stories we will hear. They are sad stories, but full of humanity and that will show us how the economic crisis affects a sector of the population of a country that many admire or idolize.
The film is an adaptation of the book Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century, by journalist and writer Jessica Bruder, which took her three years to write, as she spent months living in a caravan, documenting Samaritans who have given up fixed housing and prefer to live on the road, traveling and transiting through several states. He traveled from the Mexican border to the Canadian border, collecting experiences of people who have chosen this lifestyle.
The book won the 2017 Barnes & Noble Discover Award and was named one of the most notable books of that year by the New York Times. The writer had previously written another book, titled Burning Book: A Visual History of Burning Man.
Frances McDormand plays Fern, the protagonist of this story, giving again a great performance that will be recognized with some award. What can we say about the actress? We already know that she is one of the best actresses for a long time. She is not very fond of giving interviews and keeps her personal life very private. But she is a phenomenal actress.
Her character Fern is the center of the whole film, and McDormand gives an austere performance, conveying a lot of feelings just with silences and glances. We understand her pain, though we never quite get to know her. We understand the sadness and the desire to be alone and give up everything that represents a new beginning. Time cannot turn back and she has found the tranquility and peace she needs to survive.
Take note of it! She will be on the list of Oscar nominees. She has won two Oscars so far, for Fargo and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri - will she get her third? Another professional actor in the cast is David Strathairn, who plays David, a nomad who is attracted to Fern, has a son and will soon be a grandfather, which he sees as an opportunity to propose to Fern to stay with them. He has worked in many films and TV series, and has even been nominated for an Oscar.
Something I really liked is the cinematography, capturing those American West landscapes full of melancholy. There is an air of sadness, but at the same time of freedom. The filmmaker has resorted to someone she trusts and with whom she worked in her two previous films: the young cinematographer Joshua James Richards, who does an impeccable job and who I am sure will be nominated for an Oscar. And to give the final touch, the composer Ludovico Einaudi is in charge of the film's music, among his most important works is the successful French film Intouchables and Samba.
It has been a success in all the festivals, the specialized critics acclaim it. McDormand's performance is fabulous, the cinematography is beautiful. But it is not a film for all audiences, it is not a perfect film either, the communities and people are portrayed in a very idealized way, there is no evil and that deceives me a little. It doesn't show all the nuances of what it must be like to maintain that lifestyle.
I recommend it if you like this kind of stories, slow and dealing with existential dilemmas.
My Ranking: 3.8/5
Trailer
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