Cloe Zhao’s Nomadland adequately portrays the lifestyle of a wanderer looking for peace through the natural world. This way of living is often overlooked and ignored, due to its oddness and uniqueness in this modern world.
The film focuses on Fern, a widow, moving out of an abandoned town into her van. She plans on driving around the U.S. while picking up part-time jobs. Zhao does an excellent job of showing instead of telling Fern’s internal state of mind, while she travels around. One example would be her listening to the local news station which mentions the imprisonment of polar bears and the thought of being free, a fair representation of how Fern yearns to be free from domestic responsibilities and norms for women of her age.
In the movie, Fern also collects rocks, which are typically solid and grounded, but she often throws them away, hinting at her brief moments of stability, as seen with her years with her husband, trapped in a small town. In other words, she tries leading a conventional life for a woman her age but often finds herself needing to escape, as illustrated by those brief scenes with her in a house for a few days and then running off to her van.
Fern’s nomad lifestyle is often difficult for her sister, who is the complete opposite of Fern, as she is settled and wants to see the best for her. The relationship between her and her sister is common with nomads, as communicated by Zhao, and highlights the tension between nomads and non-nomads. In one scene, Fern packs up her bags and leaves right after her sister gives her a sandwich; the scene ends with the sister walking back into the house and Fern exiting the screen, showing the divide between them through the lack of settlement by Fern.
Along Fern’s journey, she meets other nomads who inspire her in many ways. Zhao conveys the aspects of this way of life through conversations between characters. For example, in one conversation, Swankie, a fellow nomad, denotes her life as a person looking for happiness through the Earth and how she can’t find that joy in the ‘settled life’.
Fern is propelled into a journey looking for contentment through this new life of hers, instead of focusing on her dead husband and bills that have to be paid. When she talks with Bill, who helps people like her navigate the nomad life, they talk about grief and loss which can inspire those to find that ecstasy once again in the short time they have on Earth. This forces her to reflect on her monotonous life prior, which reminds her of the reason she is doing this.
Through Fern’s conversations, Zhao also communicates the strengths one gains by pursuing this fate: the happiness of flying with the birds; bathing in a cave with waterfalls; and watching waves hit a cliff in the pouring rain.
Overall, this excellent film presents the nomad life as one that can also give one happiness, not just believed to come from retirement.
