The author mentions various denials in his review, ironically, in my view, missing the pivotal case of denial that forms the conceptual warhead of the piece. Lo

The author mentions various denials in his review, ironically, in my view, missing the pivotal case of denial that forms the conceptual warhead of the piece. Look at Fern. Why Fern? Why her, as the key nomad, rather than anyone else? The author's explanation is trite and contradicts points he highlights earlier in the piece: >Fern, like the protagonists of many frontier stories, is called to represent nothing short of the national project itself — its triumph and, in the case of this film, its decline. These narratives have always been de-politicized, their origins in genocide rubbed clean, their most reactionary elements tucked away. We are asked to empathize with the pioneer as a universal American subject in a way we are not asked to empathize with stories about more banal forms of poverty, or homelessness, or the ongoing dispossession of Indigenous land. Frontier stories are like the public lands the film relishes — pretty, but rooted in a violence that their prettiness only obscures. but see: >Nomadland is the highest-profile cultural engagement with the nomad phenomenon to date and >Chloé Zhao, a Beijing-born director whose previous film was about a struggling Lakota rodeo star, is fond of making films from a far outsider’s perspective. The suggestion that the film is yet-another misbegotten paean to the American Dream falls flat in light of its creator and its context. Nor does the bleak outlook of the protagonist seem emblematic of the ideology of capitalism. But alluding to the horrors of the past is a lot easier than original thinking. Fern is a consciously chosen protagonist. Her motivation for nomadism is not an inessential part of the narrative. It is revealed in her reaction to her in-laws' trivializing and romanticizing her situation. But it is also revealed in her refusal to settle down. If you never find a new home, it can't replace your old one. As long as Fern still lives in the van, home will always be in Empire, Nevada. That's the infrasonic melancholy resonating through every scene. Fern, the metonymic American, is in denial that Empire is gone. End scene.