#LindaMay

[elbisonodelcine]

🎞️Nomadland (2020) 🎥Chloé Zhao 📷Joshua James Richards

[adamwatchesmovies]

Nomadland (2020)

Nomadland is a great film I can understand some not “getting”. Its story is small, quiet, lonely, and sad. I doubt it will imprint itself in your memory the way you expect an Academy Award winner for “Best Picture” to. That said, it’s superbly shot and acted. Its story and characters are rich. Some will find its story powerful, and emotional.

After the US Gypsum plant in Empire, Nevada, shuts down, so does the town. Fern (Frances McDormand) sells her possessions and begins living out of her van. She is part of a group of people who’ve found they cannot live on their retirement savings and now embrace a nomadic life.

There isn’t much of a plot to Nomadland. We follow Fern from job to job, as she befriends other nomads, parts ways with them, reconnects months later, and deals with the struggles unique to her situation. The most significant event is when her engine breaks down and she asks her sister (Melissa Smith) for help. Even then, it’s just life. Like the nomads, you don't know what tomorrow will bring.

No one is rebelling against a system they hate and hoping to see break down. It's simply that some people don’t fit in “normal” society. Most often, it’s because of grief. When you think of living on the road, you think of happiness, freedom. That’s not the case here. The travelers we meet may be unshackled by material possessions but many of them are lonely. Chloé Zhao (who also wrote and edited the film) isn’t suggesting this lifestyle is what we all need. She’s merely asking us to look at these people's lives, to see what works, what doesn't, and to learn from it.

As Fern, Frances McDormand is excellent. She’s so natural, it feels like a documentary rather than fiction. Even before the end credits confirm it, you kind of know most of those we’ve met are just playing themselves.

Also noteworthy is the cinematography. Usually, this means grandiose images full of bold colors, the kind you’d print on a huge canvas for guests to admire. Such a reaction would be out of place in Nomadland. The images we see - beautiful as they are - would be more suited to small 8 in. x 10 in. frames, or a photo album. The innocuous shot of a cactus, of Fern posing next to a landmark, of friends, are memories of a life you only truly appreciate by understanding the stories behind them - and you will after seeing Nomadland.

Like Zhao's 2017 film The Rider, Nomadland feels deeply personal. It wasn't made to scoop up awards or even be seen by the masses. It was made because Zhao needed to make it; because these people needed to tell this story. Maybe it will stick in your mind after it’s over. If it doesn’t, that’s ok. Nomadland doesn’t seem like the kind of movie that would care. It knows what impact it had on you while it played. That’s what matters. (April 27, 2021)

[bryanlenning]

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[nospoilerreviews]

With poverty gradually stripping away Fern's past, Nomadland becomes a sober reflection on what it is to be old in rural America. https://is.gd/ETKVpV

[doomonfilm]

Review : Nomadland (2021)

It’s award season, and like many others, I’ve found myself scrambling to play catch-up in order to make educated guesses on who will bring home the gold.  One of the big names in the pack is Chloé Zhao’s third film, the deeply personal magnum opus that is Nomadland, and recently, it touched down at Hulu, and therefore, it jumped very high up my list of priority films.

Fern (Frances McDormand) is a recent widow living in Empire, Nevada, a town that recently found itself all but shut down when the jobs left.  With her options limited, Fern takes what’s valuable to her, sells the rest, and begins living out of her van.  She finds a seasonal job with Amazon, but once it comes to an end, Fern travels to Arizona at the recommendation of her friend Linda (Linda May) for a desert gathering of others living the nomadic lifestyle.  Under the tutelage of Bob (Bob Wells), the community trades resources and education, and Fern befriends Swankie (Charlene Swankie), a terminally ill nomad who helps Fern out of a jam before she leaves to end her life in Alaska.  Fern eventually meets David (David Straitharn), a fellow nomad haunted by his past, and the pair form a bond as they help one another survive and thrive.  As times get tough, Fern not only learns valuable lessons about survival, but also learns the value of finding others that she can depend on.

Nomadland smartly wraps up what should be a documentary into the form of a fictional narrative, but this stylized presentation takes nothing away from the testimonials of the working poor that Nomadland focuses on and lifts up.  Outside of Frances McDormand’s Fern, all of the cast (professional and non-professional) either use their actual names or some close approximation, which removes all of the airs and formality that normally surround acting to the benefit of realness.  The way that the film cherishes the concept of community is stunning in its positivity and understanding of its necessity, and if audiences take nothing else away from the film, hopefully they leave with a deeper sense of how valuable community is.

One of the uncredited stars of this film is the United States, specifically the outskirts of traditional society that are captured in all of their tremendous glory.  The classification of the film as a Western seems odd prior to viewing the film, but it’s the very dependency on the land and in self that gives the film that Western spirit.  The land in which the characters inhabit is giving nothing but the utmost respect, both in terms of glorifying it and understanding how easy it is to become victim to it if you’re unprepared or lack resourcefulness.  The Western spirit also presents itself in the nomadic nature of the characters, with nobody settling long enough to make roots in any one area.

The use of long lenses and natural lighting pulls us into the reality of Fern’s journey by capturing the vastness of the unknown that lies before her, be it with her temporary job at Amazon or her nomadic lifestyle.  Chloé Zhao’s roles as writer, director, producer and editor shows in terms of the deliberate pacing that captures life as a series of moments rather than a list of tasks that must be accomplished in order to find validation.  While not necessarily an aspect of production, there is an underlying joy in this film that can be found in several areas, be it the aforementioned sense of community, the way the characters embrace their reality, or the greater sense of achievement that comes with making a film that showcases people who are often invisible to the populous.

Frances McDormand turns on her natural ability to inhabit any thematic space she is placed in as if she has always existed there, capturing every nuance of those who live off of the land without turning it into an acting exercise or cartoonish version of reality.  David Strathairn brings a carefree spirit to the film that encapsulates the essence of the drifter, and as a result, the sense of despair one believes they should feel is softened by his infectious presence.  In terms of the non-actors, talking about them in terms of “performances” seems disingenuous, but Chloé Zhao manages to capture the best aspect of each of these people : Linda May’s caring nature, Swankie’s iron will and determination in the face of mortality, Bob Wells’ wealth of knowledge and kind-hearted efforts to spread it and a host of others all stand out in this deeply moving film.  Supporting appearances by Tay Strathairn, Derek Endres, Cat Clifford, Peter Spears, Brandy Wilber and many more bring the cast of characters and real people to life.

Nomadland is up for four Golden Globe awards, and it’s almost certainly a shoo-in for Frances McDormand to garner another acting award, but the competition in the technical awards is quite stiff.  That being said, don’t be surprised if Chloé Zhao ends award season with a much higher profile, and possibly even an award or two of her own, because her work on Nomadland certainly deserves recognition.

[film-book]

NOMADLAND (2020) Movie Trailer 2: Frances McDormand journeys through the American Midwest in Chloé Zhao's Film https://tinyurl.com/yce4afan