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Last week I shared a few pics from the Christmas-New Year holiday, and also let fall that it had been a fairly rainy experience. The great thing about that, though, is that it totally justifies concentrating on catching up on reading and viewing, both \u2018at home\u2019 (TV!) & \u2018abroad\u2019 (cinema!)<\/p>\n
When it came to the film viewing, the surprise positive was Nomadland<\/em>. I say \u2018surprise\u2019 because I didn\u2019t really know what I was going to see, and the format was unexpected. Nonetheless, I was immediately interested in and engaged by the film.<\/p>\n The unexpected format was a hybrid between a documentary and a drama, with (I believe) only two of the main characters being fictional. It was not a \u201cdocudrama\u201d, though (imo), because the \u201carcs\u201d of the main characters were<\/em> fictional, albeit within a very \u201cslice of life\u201d format (hence putting the reference to character arcs in quote marks.)<\/p>\n Otherwise, the majority of those that appeared in the film were real people, the \u201cnomads\u201d who have chosen or been forced by circumstance to live in vans \/ mobile homes, following an itinerant lifestyle. I call the film \u201cdocumentary\u201d in the sense that it documents their lives, albeit through a fictional lens. Some give the impression of choosing the lifestyle voluntarily, while others move continuously in order to obtain casual seasonal employment.<\/p>\n Frances MacDormand as Fern<\/p><\/div>\n What holds it all together is the central figure of Fern, played by Frances MacDormand. Her fictional arc of an ageing woman who has lost her home and livelihood due to adverse circumstances, but whose determination to remain independent leads her into the nomadic, itinerant worker existence, provides a \u201cwindow\u201d into the lives of America\u2019s real nomadic community.<\/p>\n Frances MacDormand\u2019s performance is stoic and the narrative minimalist, the film’s physical and emotional landscapes stark. Together, this troika deliver a film experience that is understated and powerful in inverse proportion.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Frances-MacDormand_Nomadland-300x168.jpg\")
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While the past has famously been said to be, \u201c\u2026 a foreign country: they do things differently there\u201d<\/em> (LP Hartley, The Go-Between<\/em>) I felt Nomadland<\/em> opened a window into an aspect of America that was previously unknown to me, where people do indeed live in a way that is foreign to my experience. I found the viewing experience thought-provoking and rewarding. Accordingly, I\u2019m recommending the film.<\/p>\n