Nomadland: A Poignant and Breathtaking Picture of the American Nomadic Community
Towards the end of the film, talking about the modern nomadic life, one of the characters says, “…there’s no final goodbye”, and that represents the essence of Nomadland. The premise of the film is the economic crisis of 2008, when a lot of people lost their jobs, homes and life overall, they turned to an alternate lifestyle of the modern nomad traversing the vast landscapes of the American West.
Fern, played by Frances McDormand, is a woman in her sixties whose husband dies before the financial crisis. She leaves his hometown of Empire, Nevada as the town shuts down in the face of economic crunch. She buys an RV and joins the nomadic community along the way as she finds work as a freelancer at Amazon warehouses.
As she travels we get to see the extent of freedom such life can grant a person, as well as what holds them back. As Fern travels through the enormous, lonely terrains of America, we see her gradually giving up material memories of her former life which also reminded her of her dead husband. But as everything else in life, becoming a free person is also not as simple, as Fern keeps traveling back and forth between her past and present. Even though she is figuring things out, we are made to understand that it is entirely by choice that she chose the nomad life, as she tells her niece, she is not “homeless” but “houseless”. Fern carries all the warmth and love a home symbolizes with her, hence the need of a ‘home’ no longer there.
Even though the film shows the visually diverse and unending geography of America, the tone of the film is warm and comfortable. Zhao and McDormand have created an atmosphere of normalcy in a life that would seem weird to most of us, but Zhao has made it quite clear throughout the film that since it is what Fern has chosen as a life despite still having a sister and other family members she can live with. Since it is her choice it is what makes her happy and that sense of content is what radiates throughout the film giving it a personal feeling.
But it is not easy to watch a film like Nomadland, especially during the pandemic, when a lot of people are experiencing loneliness, having to fend for themselves amongst a job and health crisis. Fern’s aloofness from the seemingly ‘outside’ world can come across as a bit dreary for some people, but we come to accept her as a unique character who, although a bit awkward, carries love and benevolence.
Nomadland has been adapted from the book of same name by Jessica Bruder, who spent three years traveling and researching,which gives it a documentary like atmosphere. Zhao, adding to Bruder’s attention to detail, has imagined the film from the eyes of Fern as we see long shots of the breathtaking horizons, forests, mountains that make us feel mesmerized and lost in the beauty of the entire phenomenon. The endlessness of the landscapes keeps reminding us the continuity of life, even after death, since there are no final goodbyes.
Nomadland is a little sad, much optimistic and a bit funny as we see Fern and the people she meets along the way navigate through a crushing economy, their own old age, loneliness, and somewhat changed meanings of love and companionship. If nothing else this film should be treated as a beautifully told masterpiece of a people finding their way in a world with changing perceptions of things we took for granted, which should not be too difficult in the face of the pandemic.