Houseless not Homeless: Nomadland
If you’re a city person like me, “Nomadland” will make you slow down. Screened in the Browning Cinema in DPAC this past weekend, the film took me on a journey with Fern, our elderly protagonist played by Frances McDormand. I followed Fern, dipping my toes into a stream of rushing water, taking in the woody scent as the forest embraced me, tilting my head back to look up at an evening sky swirling with lilac and orange hues in the sweeping desert.
The Academy Award winning film isn’t just a highlight reel of beautiful landscapes though. The background for a lot of Fern’s days are vast, dreary campgrounds or winding roads in the icy wilderness of the American West. Fern is part of a loose constellation of nomads, elderly Americans who’ve lost their livelihoods and have had to vacate their homes due to a combination of economic factors including the 2008 recession. These nomads opt to make their home in vans or recreational vehicles and do temporary jobs wherever they go.
To me, this story is distinctly American. It is a uniquely American notion for people, even the elderly, to hold on dearly to their personal freedom when everything, including their dignity, has been taken away from them. I say this because most of the nomads do have some family who were willing to take them in. However, the nomads preferred to be the authors of their own destiny, even if that meant giving up running water and safety.
It also reflects how the economy has let down American people who have spent their whole lives working for one company. In Fern’s case, her husband worked at a mine until he died and later the mine was shut down, forcing out all the dependents who lived there. The nomads are forced to accept this failure of the state and instead of protesting for better Social Security benefits, they just keep going.
The film makes a poignant statement about freedom. The free market and the rapid closure of the mine in the absence of demand for the rock it was supplying is what led to Fern’s ruin. However, it’s the fluidity of the labor market that allowed her to have a new lease on life by working at an Amazon packaging unit. The scenes in the grey Amazon facility are particularly jarring after the wide shots of gorgeous nature. The idea that Amazon, which is not known to be the most generous employer, is actually what is keeping Fern afloat and not her nest egg is a sad reflection of the outcomes that the free market sometimes produces.
Nomadland’s depiction of the free-flowing companionship of the nomads was moving. The bonds that Fern made as she travelled were deep but the nomads never held each other back.Swankie was one of Fern’s friends who had been diagnosed with lung cancer and only had a few months to live. At first Fern wanted to take her to a hospital but Swankie was clear that she wanted to ‘watch pelicans fly’ and live life instead of dying in a hospital room. Before Swankie left on her travels, Fern helped her fix up her van and gave her a haircut, one of the most intimate scenes in the film. Fern’s other friends weaved in and out of her life, sometimes working the same job and revelling in each others’ company but also going off on their separate adventures, with the understanding that only two untethered people can have.
Beyond all the political statements the film makes about the lack of welfare in the US and about personal liberty, “Nomadland” is an achingly realistic slice of life that will make you think of what home means to you.
