’Nomadland’ Chloe Zhao’s Docu-Fiction Venice Winner [Review]

[Originally posted on 09.12.20 as part of my coverage of the Toronto International Film Festival]

Chloe Zhao‘s “Nomadland,” which just won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, is not going to be a film for the masses, and all the better for it. This is a moody, and mesmerizing third film from the Chinese-American filmmaker, after her triumphant 2018 film, “The Rider.” Much like her previous efforts, this is Zaho’s 21st-century depiction of Americana angst, mixing non-fiction and fiction filmmaking in effortless fashion.

A painterly film, Joshua James Richard‘s magic-hour cinematography is absolutely stunning, it stars Frances McDormand as Fern, a widowed nomad, with no interest in settling down, who constantly evolves from community to community in her rundown RV van. Don’t call her homeless, she prefers to use the term “house-less,” moving from job to job, camp to camp, parking lot to parking lot with no intention to settle down.

Set in Obama’s America during 2012, just 4 years after the recession hit, it depicts a country still struggling to get back to normal. To nail the authenticity of this world of nomads, Zhao insisted on casting non-professional actors, actual nomads, who convere in almost every scene with McDormand - whether these non-actors even knew who McDormand, a two-time Oscar winner was, is unlikely as these are people living on the outskirts of society, plugged out of the currents and fully ingrained in their isolated habitat.

Driven by Ludovico Einaudi‘s haunting piano score, this is a quietly somber look at a closed-off woman who refuses to change, resistant to any overtures, including a charming fellow nomad she bumps into every few months (a wonderful supporting turn from David Straitharn). Even his attraction to Fern, not to mention an invite for stability and a home, is shrugged off by her. A creature of habit, she’d rather have a hard life, filled with work and daily vagabonding. 

You won’t find anything near a plot in “Nomadland,” this is a statement about character, atmosphere, and mood, all wrapped up in a sprawling socially conscious narrative and that does result in the film being repetitive from time to time. But you won’t find a movie like this anywhere out there, Zhao is a unique and vital voice in the cinematic current, she’s invented her own brand of cinema, a kind of docu-fictional hybrid that manages to depict a part of America that is nary, if ever, depicted on-screen [B+]