2020, English, Disney Hotstar, 7.5/10 IMDB, Directed by Chloé Zhao
While the pandemic ridden world around you speak, what a fine work of art this Oscar winning film ‘Nomadland’ is, the film is deeply disturbing as it communicates volumes of personalized emotions. The film calmly challenges the very basic driving force of millions across the planet- the desire to build a nest of their own called ‘home’, for some people, it even means to ‘die in it’ rather than to ‘live in it’.
The movie looks ‘life’ through the eyes of a van dwelling nomad widow, named Fern, played by the adept actor Francis Mcdormand. Fern has no job, no house and no one to call her ‘own’. Isn’t that what each one of us are bracing ourselves, all our healthy lives long – the frightful ‘stranded all alone’ moment.
The film opens to a storage room where Fern had kept her belongings. She is selling most of it to procure a van for herself to travel in it and find a job. Her teary eyes say, each of those wordily possessions, had a tale to tell. It connects to the viewers instantaneously, as we all tend to hold on to things that we call it ‘ours’ and found it hard to let go of, however trifling it might be.
I experience a very similar emotion each time I dust the tiny figurines in my living room. A prompt flashback of where and when I had bought those souvenirs would flash upon my eye. My otherwise poor memory, would over work, to get me a tight close-up of the souvenir shop I bought it from, along with umpteen other insignificant details, including a tiff with my husband during that trip.
My ’empty nester house’, in the middle of the pandemic had another trail of thought to add to the dusting routine. I wondered what my only daughter would do to these memorabilia, after my time here is over. She has no plans of settling down on this side of the planet. A decade or two is the precise life of these ‘memory dolloped figurines’, I thought to myself. I chose to watch ‘Nomandland’ on the very same day of my dusting routine, destiny I call it. The movie left me weary and the already swaying inner self of mine seemed shattered. When life is zeroed down to a void with no memories, no people, no purpose, what does one do? If I find myself in Fern’s shoes, what would I do- I could hear my inner ‘Me’ questioning repeatedly.
When a young girl questions Fern at a store, if she was homeless, Ferns answers, ‘I am house less’. Home to her, is the confined space of her van, whereas, a house to her seemed rather a physical structure with unwanted space in it. The more she learns on the survival techniques of a nomad’s life from fellow nomads, the director tries to engulf the audience into the simplified livelihood of the nomadic herders. At some point, I turned to look at the huge space I call ‘My home’ and it seemed to make no sense for some weird reason.
The other fascinating element of the film is, when Fern is seen envisaging the possibility of getting back in to a caging life. In a dilemma whether to accept the offer of her fellow nomad Dave, who is moving in with his son’s family for good, she braves to overcome the temptation, not letting herself ‘anchor down’ for the rest of her life in a ‘House’. She breaks free the claustrophobic life and a jump cut atop a cliff that follows is sheer magical. The gushing wind ruffling her hair makes one feel what it means to be free of human ties. Suddenly the ‘stranded all alone moment’ is not as dreadful as it sounds, I thought. My mind was trying to find random parallels in ‘Vanapratha’, the third of the four ashramas of the Hindu tradition, which means ‘to give up worldly life’ and retire to the forest.
The film convincingly moves on and the watch becomes even intense when she visits her abandoned house at the Gypsum plant. She had lived there with her husband until he died and for sometime even after his death. The house she had described earlier in the film, had left a picture in the viewer’s mind, a scenic backyard with a vast desert landscape, meeting the mountains at the horizon. The image of the now uninhabited house, stripped of its ‘once upon a time’ identity, stands like a mere skeleton, a thing of the past. The ‘memories’ are the only remains of the life it dentoes and those are the ones that Fern is seen carrying with her on the road.
Couple of days of contemplation made me ask myself, whether Fern would have chosen to live the nomad’s life if her husband hadn’t died or if she wasn’t broke. She takes this path when she is in a crisis and chooses to stick to it, as she couldn’t stomach the mundane life any longer. The minimalist living, sure is intriguing and for people like me, who think ‘Home’ is synonymous to security, the possibility of experiencing it, might be only if it is the last available resort.
If life were to force upon me a trip to the Nomadland, it might as well be a worthy one, I thought.
Must watch.