I'll see you down the road

 Watched Nomadland finally. What a fucking movie. Firstly, I had no idea it starred Francis McDormand, otherwise I'd have watched it long ago. I absolutely loved her in 3 Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri (which I must have watched like 4 times). 

The movie is about this woman's life who loses her husband and has to move out of the town they worked in, take up odd jobs, meet randos on the road, and live in a caravan. It's shot very documentary style, which is like lots of diagetic sound, natural light, long shots, choppy editing. But it never seems staccato. 

There's a beautiful line right at the beginning when Francis' character is at a supermarket and she meets a family from her old town who have relocated elsewhere. They now look at her with this demeaning, patronizing kind of pity, which she senses but takes the moral high ground and lets slide. The daughter says to her, 'My mother says you're homeless,' to which she simply replies: 'No, I'm house-less, not homeless.. and I think there's a difference.' Wow. What a line right!

That's the beauty of the character Francis plays. So much of silent grit, putting up a brave front while grappling with the inconsistencies, the fragility, the unpredictability of life as a single woman nomad traveller. But she finds companionship somewhere along the way. She keeps on bumping into the same people, she exchanges cigarettes and beers with some of them, she has conversations with others that make her smile, and all of this is her life unfolding day by day, minute by minute. That's it. That's the movie. 

Another conversation I loved happens towards the end. Fern is speaking to Bob, and he tells her this (i looked this up and copy-pasted it from Google becayse I didn't want to paraphrase, the line is just so beautiful).

“One of the things I love most about this life is that there's no final goodbye. You know, I've met hundreds of people out here and I don't ever say a final goodbye. I always just say, 'I'll see you down the road.' And I do”

And I think that's the denouement of the movie because this conversation puts a wide smile on her face, and she's come to accept her destiny as a nomad, someone to whom the confines of a home will never feel normal again. 

What I felt the film didn't do justice to was the downsides of being a gig worker at Amazon. She says it pays her really well, but it doesn't show that life quite fully, the conditions in which the gig workers do their work, the hours they work, the overall exploitative nature of the work, etc. 

Then for some reason I put on Kumbalangi Nights, which I had seen long ago but forgotten. Fell in love with it all over again. Didn't agree with some parts of it though, especially the end where the whole bit about toxic masculinity is suddenly presented as a mental illness (while both can and do co-exist, glossing over a major social and societal issue and reframing it as a mental illess felt like a complete cop out). But the characters are relatable, the comedy is well written, and the overall message the film gives of the brothers coming together and living under one roof despite their differences, and - mainly - working hard to make it work between them, is really nice.

And the music by Sushin Shyam is next level. In fact, the Nomadland soundtrack is brilliant too. Must check out who's given the music. Just did. It's Ludovico Einaudi. Apparently director Chloe Zhao picked some of the tracks from his Seven Days Walking box set for the score. So they weren't made specifically for the film. Interesting.

And completely forgot to mention, Chloe Zhao is neurodivergent. She's also a genius. She's a neurodivergent genius, which makes me so happy. Her latest film Hamnet is also nominated for an Academy Award this year, so I'm going to watch that one soon as well. Chloe Zhao is an absolute GENIUS. 

Anyway, i had no idea Francis McDormand was married to Ethan Coen. And that she's produced this film. Must watch Fargo again. 

And also must watch Super Deluxe soon. The Mattancherry gang of Malayalam cinema is so good. Dileesh Pothan, Fafa, Syam Pushkaran... what a talented bunch of guys. What it must be like to sit with them in a room thinking of scripts, treatments, ideas to turn into movies. Man.