Nomadland - film review
Feb. 20th, 2021 11:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatFinished watching on Hulu, Nomadland starring Frances McDormand and David Striagtharn, everyone else is just playing themselves. It's based on the book of the same name and directed by Chloe Zhao.
This film blew me away. It wasn't what I expected at all. And I found it weirdly comforting. It's a film that takes you so completely into another person's point of view, that it allows a deep understanding of their life and their pain, and it's in a way comforting because in sharing that pain and grief, and coming out on the other side - there's a sense of the wonderous nature of life in the littlest of things. Scattered moments, and beautiful landscapes.
It is a quiet film. There's not a lot of dialogue, most of the film is shown through the quiet contemplation of a landscape or the lead character, Fern, as portrayed by Frances McDormand's face with all it's lines etched like stone.
I fell in love with Fern, the film, and sank inside it like you might a cool soothing bath - as you stare out at a quiet landscape.
The film is about dealing with loss, and grief, but also about change, and living day to day, with seemingly little.
Fern, whose point of view we never leave, is a woman in her sixties, who has lost her husband and her job. Along with her house. She lives out of her van, which she's worked on and reconstructed into a living space. Moving from place to place, to find work, and to park in various RV outlets. Along the way she meets other nomads like herself who live on the road, out of RVs, Trucks, and vans. Taking odd jobs here and there. And their friends are those they meet on the road. Goodbye isn't a phrase they use, so much as see you down the road.
Watching it, I felt my Grandmother's presence and my Aunt's - both of which traveled the US by RV, and spent the vast majority of their later years in the desert. A good portion of the film takes place in Quartzite, Arizona, where my grandparents parked in the winter months. I've met these people, and I've listened to their stories. This film brought them back to me, but I got to see them through different eyes, and a new understanding, which I did not have over twenty years ago.
Nomadland does a good job of quietly showing another perspective. One most of us may not understand. Fern wants no handouts. She can't really live under a roof any longer, even though this is offered. And she's not looking for love or commitment. The loneliness seeps in at times, but she can't quite settle for anything else - and she meets and forms friendships along the road - it's not always lonely.
Nomadland reminds me what a good story does or is meant to do - which is to take us into another perspective, another person's skin and sit around in it for a bit. It teachs us empathy - empathy for a life that is not our own, and understanding, along with a sense of joy and compassion for a life we've not lived, but can well see the worth in the living of it.
It's a haunting film along with a comforting one. And unlike so many films and television shows of late, does not leave a bitter after taste. If anything quite the opposite. The people in this film are exceedingly kind to one another, offering bits of ordinary comfort. Occasionally tripping over themselves. It also allows for the space to grieve those who have departed all too soon. And shows human companionship and comaraderi admist the stretches of lonely contemplation in the vastness of the American West.
The end reel, where not a line of dialogue is spoken, and is just images, including closeups of Fern's face as she contemplates the life she left behind sent chills up my spine, along with the parting words..."to the recently departed, see you down the road."
I cannot recommend this film enough. If you can, do see it. It's one of those films that seeps into the bones, and changes us, in a good way.
This film blew me away. It wasn't what I expected at all. And I found it weirdly comforting. It's a film that takes you so completely into another person's point of view, that it allows a deep understanding of their life and their pain, and it's in a way comforting because in sharing that pain and grief, and coming out on the other side - there's a sense of the wonderous nature of life in the littlest of things. Scattered moments, and beautiful landscapes.
It is a quiet film. There's not a lot of dialogue, most of the film is shown through the quiet contemplation of a landscape or the lead character, Fern, as portrayed by Frances McDormand's face with all it's lines etched like stone.
I fell in love with Fern, the film, and sank inside it like you might a cool soothing bath - as you stare out at a quiet landscape.
The film is about dealing with loss, and grief, but also about change, and living day to day, with seemingly little.
Fern, whose point of view we never leave, is a woman in her sixties, who has lost her husband and her job. Along with her house. She lives out of her van, which she's worked on and reconstructed into a living space. Moving from place to place, to find work, and to park in various RV outlets. Along the way she meets other nomads like herself who live on the road, out of RVs, Trucks, and vans. Taking odd jobs here and there. And their friends are those they meet on the road. Goodbye isn't a phrase they use, so much as see you down the road.
Watching it, I felt my Grandmother's presence and my Aunt's - both of which traveled the US by RV, and spent the vast majority of their later years in the desert. A good portion of the film takes place in Quartzite, Arizona, where my grandparents parked in the winter months. I've met these people, and I've listened to their stories. This film brought them back to me, but I got to see them through different eyes, and a new understanding, which I did not have over twenty years ago.
Nomadland does a good job of quietly showing another perspective. One most of us may not understand. Fern wants no handouts. She can't really live under a roof any longer, even though this is offered. And she's not looking for love or commitment. The loneliness seeps in at times, but she can't quite settle for anything else - and she meets and forms friendships along the road - it's not always lonely.
Nomadland reminds me what a good story does or is meant to do - which is to take us into another perspective, another person's skin and sit around in it for a bit. It teachs us empathy - empathy for a life that is not our own, and understanding, along with a sense of joy and compassion for a life we've not lived, but can well see the worth in the living of it.
It's a haunting film along with a comforting one. And unlike so many films and television shows of late, does not leave a bitter after taste. If anything quite the opposite. The people in this film are exceedingly kind to one another, offering bits of ordinary comfort. Occasionally tripping over themselves. It also allows for the space to grieve those who have departed all too soon. And shows human companionship and comaraderi admist the stretches of lonely contemplation in the vastness of the American West.
The end reel, where not a line of dialogue is spoken, and is just images, including closeups of Fern's face as she contemplates the life she left behind sent chills up my spine, along with the parting words..."to the recently departed, see you down the road."
I cannot recommend this film enough. If you can, do see it. It's one of those films that seeps into the bones, and changes us, in a good way.