I am so glad to start the month of May with something genuinely great, it is the latest "Oscar" winning movie with a big fuss made about being the first award given to Asian female director - but honestly, I was really enjoying the movie for its story, depth, insight and the thoughtfulness - while the questions of director's gender and race might be interesting to some, it is the movie itself that moved me and got my attention, this whole media attention kind of misses the point if this is all they will talk about.
The story follows middle aged Fern (excellent Frances McDormand) who struggles to survive as a nomadic temporary worker here and there, while living in her van. Along the way she meets others who are (for various reasons) in the same situation and who help her with practical advices about this nomadic lifestyle and how to move South when the weather turns cold. It is quite grim, stark contrast from the idealistic picture of America that we got used to - this America is not a promised land but a bare, unfriendly and cold wasteland where elderly, lonely and forgotten people bond over the bonfire in a desert, singing together, talking, laughing and sharing their grief. Without going too much into detail, I can say that Fern is sort of Odyssey looking for her home - trough the movie we discover more about her background, but its all done very cleverly in layers that slowly peel one by one - finally its not even about one particular thing but as her sister (Melissa Smith) says, she was always a brave outsider yearning to be elsewhere.
The movie is incredibly slow-burning beauty and it demands your whole attention - no big car crashes or explosions here, this is all about understanding how heroically and stoically Fern copes with everything that life throws at her. When warned that she can't park on this particular spot overnight, she simply goes away. When her prized ceramic plates crash, she glues them. No matter what kind of job is available, she will do it. Sometimes its numbing (like in Amazon packing plant), sometimes pleasant (in a sunny car camp). And just like mythical Odyssey, she meets all sorts of people - who are thankfully, mostly friendly and lost just as she is - there is even a young man into whom she bumps accidentally twice and recites him some Shakespeare - it is heartbreaking to understand that she is stronger of the two and he might be on the downslope.
I thought it was brilliant - very interesting, thought-provoking, makes you think not about movie itself but about bigger picture, like life, our place in it, the people that we meet, the bonds we made, what is really important, our connection to material possessions, etc. A friend was commenting how much we are attached to our material possessions and right in the middle of the movie we had to stop and discuss this, because I disagreed - Fern is a perfect example - there is absolutely nothing that I could not live without - all my material possessions are just that, material things and they can all disappear in an earthquake or whatever - what matters is what I keep in my heart and my mind (and even that is not guaranteed to stay intact), really we are like a leaf in the wind and all that matters is how we touched people along the way and did we help somebody. Every single person in this movie carries his or hers own cross, what they do is help each other to ease it just a little bit.
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