Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland: the politics of the Other
Nomadland is a tale of the Other.
In Chloé Zhao’s latest film
Nomadland, Fern (Frances McDormand) starts a seemingly endless journey through Central America in her van, working seasonal jobs to keep herself afloat after the town that she lived half of her life a company town, where all residents worked for the state’s largest gypsum company, the United States
Gypsum Corporation (USG) shuts down after the economic recession. The van is her new home, as is the case for other nomads, alienated by the neoliberal economic system.
Nomadland is a tale of the Other that is usually left out from the grand narratives told by the media. In the film, Fern and other nomads find themselves exiled (or exile themselves) from a ‘normal’ life: working a decent 9-5 job, getting paid and living as a middle-class American. In the film, Zhao digs into the underlying politics and economic system that threatens life. Like migratory bird
For all its grit and melancholy, Nomadland shows the raw beauty of the American West
As the Oscar-winning elegy hits UK screens, Chris Leadbeater sings to the subtle wonders of the American West
The powerful landscapes of the American West have long dominated cinema
Credit: Getty
There is – as the new-fangled phrase goes – a lot to unpack from Nomadland’s triumph at the Oscars last weekend, and its rise into the cultural conversation over the last few days.
Both the following are articles in themselves: the handing of the Best Director statuette to Chloé Zhao – a victory which makes her the first woman of colour to win the award, and only the second woman ever; and the continued ascent of Frances McDormand – who having instilled in her lead character a twitchy awkwardness and an understated sadness, has now picked up the Best Actress gong three times (following her success with Fargo in 1997, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri in 2018). For anyone keeping
The Rider, 2017) and featuring Frances McDormand,
Nomadland is a semi-fictionalized reworking of Jessica Bruder’s non-fiction work of the same title. (To be more precise, the full title of Bruder’s book is
Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century.)
The work premiered at the Venice film festival and was then screened at the Toronto film festival. It had a one-week streaming release in December and has already won a number of awards, and is expected to collect more. It is an affecting film, with a typically committed performance by McDormand, but, in our view, the universal critical accolades are overdone. There are elements here that need scrutinizing a little more carefully.
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