Amid another wave of Covid-19 cases that arose from the end of last year, I’ve been working from home since then, which meant that I’ve been spending quite a lot of time alone with my cat. He is no longer the youthful cat that he once was before and I’ve been fussing over to find the most adequate brand of catfood for an aging pet. The brands are dividedby their ingredients and functions, and there is a brand called “Indoor,” which, as the word suggests, is for stay-at-home cats who keep their paws strictly indoors at all times. While I skimmed over back of its label, which read, “a product that specializes in weight control, skin and hair management and eliminates poop odor,” I realized how much of its function overlapped with what I needed.
The more time I spent locked inside my home, I began to lack exercise, became more sensitive to smells in my home and I could feel my skin sagging due to the dry air quality indoors. But does any of it matter anymore, I thought, when I’m stuck at home by myself. The trail of thought led me to think, then was I grooming myself for the sake of others? What is it to be me when I’m alone? What is it to enjoy my own life?
I think that everyone, like myself, lost their way a little as this pandemic dragged on for over a year, as I witnessed the global recognition that “Nomadland,” a film about a 61-year-old woman driven out of her hometown and succumb to a life of a nomad, has been receiving since its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September.
The protagonist of this story is Fern (played by Frances McDormand), a widow who has to leave her beloved hometown she’s lived in for years after losing her job as the city shut down due to economic recession. She sells everything else she needs and buys a small van, where she loads all of her cherished possessions like her memories with her father, and hits the road. She has left behind the life she had always known, and now her world has come down to inside a moving van. She can’t figure out the world that’s hers and isn’t even sure if that distinction exists anymore. Every step she takes forward is into the unknown.
Chloé Zhao is the filmmaker behind “Nomandland.” She also wrote the script, co-produced and co-edited the film. Born in China, she grew up in China and Britain and is now active in the United States. Zhao was invited to the Sundance Film Festival in 2015 for her debut feature film “Songs My Brothers Taught Me” and her second feature film “The Rider” premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2017 as part of Directors’ Fortnight selection, earning her the Art Cinema Award. In Korea, she is more familiar as the filmmaker behind upcoming Marvel hero film “Eternals” starring actor Ma Dong-seok, but its release date has yet to be set.
Some skeptics who would have heard up to this point might say, possibly what kind of attraction would a story about an old woman created by a female filmmaker who used to take helm of such “art films,” can hold for the audience. But this film is quite phenomenal. At the Venice Film Festival where Tilda Swinton shouted out “Cinema cinema cinema. Wakanda Forever. Nothing but love,” “Nomadland” clutched the Golden Lion and has taken home a total of 222 trophies from film associations and festivals worldwide by the time I write this review on April 12. The film is currently the hottest talk-of-the-town as it continues to sweep all the major awards at award ceremonies, including best director at the Directors Guild of America Awards on April 10, best film, best director, best actress in a leading role for McDormand and best cinematography at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (Baftas) on the following day.
“Nomadland” is also the toughest competitor that a film about Korean immigrant family “Minari,” starring actor Youn Yuh-jung, faces at the upcoming Academy Awards on April 25, which has been delayed for two months due to the pandemic. Including nominations for best actress for McDormand who co-produced the film and best cinematography, the film received a whopping six nods, Zhao’s name sits on the candidate list for the rest of four nominations — best picture, best adapted screenplay, best director and best film editing — which is the most Oscar nominations that a female filmmaker has ever received in the history of Academy Awards. McDormand, who’s already won two best actress awards in Oscar for her performance in “Fargo” (1996) and “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” (2017), the Hollywood press and critics expect her to win her third Oscar this year.
What led this film to its glory all began with this question: Will I be able to find myself again when I lose everything that define me? It’s the question that the original author Jessica Bruder might have been asking herself when she wrote her nonfiction book “Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century” (2017) based on her nomad life, and the beacon of light from the lighthouse Zhao was stirring towards to on her voyage of reconfiguring the story into a film script, and what will probably make the audience ponder in their seats for a long time after the credit rolls over. The answer lies in the transition of Fern’s expression and attitude at the beginning and end of the film. Fern, with less-than-confident expression on her face, who uncertainly tells her old neighbor whom she comes across at the supermarket “No, I’m not homeless. I’m just houseless,” has transformed into a brave survivor who fully enjoys her freedom roaming around the vast American West all the while forging bonds and communities with other nomads regardless of the distance — her epic journey is the answer to the question.
There have been other epidemics such as Covid-19 which infiltrated into our homes to our very own beds. When life becomes a battlefield, only you can end the war.
In the film, Fern becomes the pioneer of her own life by going to wherever her feet take her through the vast wilderness of the American west. As if filming a documentary, the film shows Fern’s empty gaze slowly regaining its light as she hangs out with other real-life nomads. McDormand vividly conveys Fern’s transformation as she reclaims her glorious moments when she used to embrace the world without fear.
But the film does not romanticize life on the road. It also describes the countless nights where Fern stays awake in the darkness because she can’t find a parking spot, or when she lay shivering despite wrapping herself in all the blankets and clothes she own during the frost. More than often it paints the picture of the desolate solitude where one has no one to turn for help. Amid that struggle, Fern evolves in a way to befriend the mother nature. When she realizes that the barren land, rocks, trees, stars and even hurricane is part of the “community” that she’s living in, she is no longer lonely even when she is alone. “If we find peace in solitude, we can still lead a fulfilling life,”” Zhao explains. It doesn’t matter if our companions and friends aren’t at the arm’s reach. What matters is that we exist in this world together, and that we have once spent our time together and share memories to cherish together. That alone is all we need to become each other’s significant other, and that is what makes us able to carry on living even when we’re physically, completely alone.
There are other such brave survivors like Linda May, Swankie, and Bob Wells who play themselves in the film. The nomads that Fern meets on the streets are the real-life nomads and friends that the author Bruder met when she was on her journey to the Nomadland. The virtue of this film is that it makes the audience want to become a pioneer of their own paths that no one has ventured before. Experience is your best teacher, and only you can discover the path to your own fate. I want to recommend the film to all of us battling through the virus-riddled era.
Na Won-jeong(Journalist) / Translated by Lee Jaelim
Na Won -jeong After writing for film magazines such as “Screen,” “Movie Week,” “Max Movie Magazine” and “Magazine M,” Na is a film journalist for the Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo. She is what one may call “a successful geek” as it’s her job and her hobby to peer closely into the ins and outs of films.
* 《Cultura》 2021 May (Vol. 83) *
