Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
Writer-director: Chloé Zhao, Foxtel.
Nomadland was a dominant movie taking top honours at the 93rd Academy Awards last week. It’s a riveting story of a woman who embarks on a journey through the American West, living as a van-dwelling modern-day nomad after losing everything in the Great Recession.
It made history after winning the 2021 awards for best picture, best director and best actress. A film that acknowledges a strong message about anguish and smashed dreams, its compelling and effective message touches the heart’s core.
Oscar accolades were deserved for director and screenwriter Chloé Zhao (Songs My Brothers Taught Me, The Rider). It is only the second film directed by a woman to be named Best Picture. A visionary director, Zhao also co-produced and edited the film.
Nomadland also garnered a third Best Actress Academy Award for Frances McDormand (Fargo, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri). As Fern in Nomadland, McDormand is the memorable focus as a widow struggling with grief and loss. A strikingly multi-faceted woman, she is intense though restrained, sophisticated yet subdued. She undertakes a deeply moving, spiritual and factual journey of discovery.
Adapted from a non-fiction book by Jessica Bruder, it follows Fern after she loses her job following the shut down of the US Gypsum plant in Empire, Nevada. She has worked there for years, along with husband, who has recently died. Fern decides to sell most of her belongings and hit the road in a camper van to join the nomad movement, where she meets others in the community, including a kind drifter and potential love interest, Dave (David Strathairn, Good Night, and Good Luck, The Bourne Legacy).
It’s a poignant story of finding a community on the road, including real-life nomads Linda May, Swankie, and Bob Wells appear as fictionalised versions of themselves. They choose this lifestyle to heal.
Zhao’s contemplative equilibrium of dignity and familiarity makes Nomadland a proficient film, an emotive masterpiece that has an impact on you, but never inflicts or sways your concentration.
The thought-provoking film, quite different from the traditional, weaves a tapestry of life that has a dreamlike quality. Nomadland’s visuals are magnificent. Impressive shots of the landscape and the piercing, impressionable zoom onto faces of the characters are telling in the significance of the individual impacts. The widespread desolate desert backdrops reflect the hardships. This emotion is particularly prevalent on Fern’s face.
Zhao reunites with cinematographer Joshua James Richards (The Rider) who captures the beauty of the landscapes across the US, and long shots to the horizon, in a surreal fashion. In addition, its got a touching musical score by Ludovico Einaudi.
