Chloe Zhao, director of the film "Nomadland", in California on September 11, 2020. -
Richard Shotwell / AP / SIPA
This is the consecration for Chloe Zhao.
The American director won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday evening for her film
Nomadland
.
In this melancholy road-trip, the actress at the two Oscars Frances McDormand slipped into the skin of a broken woman who leaves everything to live in a van, her "American dream".
see you down the road.
#Nomadland, a film by Chloé Zhao starring Frances McDormand.
In theaters December 4. # Venezia77 # TIFF20 #TellurideFilmFestival #NYFF pic.twitter.com/Q8dTHYPTnc
- Nomadland (@nomadlandfilm) September 8, 2020
The film is an immersion in the world of "van dwellers" ("inhabitants of caravans"), these Americans who live in their converted vehicle, doing odd jobs.
They meet in the community, randomly along their route, or on social networks (#vanlife).
A film that describes a difficult life
Frances McDormand is at the origin of the project, where she plays Fern, a woman who lost everything, after the death of her husband and the closure of the factory in her town.
This life is hard: she does odd jobs, feeds on cans, defecates in a bucket, but finds comfort in the solidarity and exchanges that nourish the community.
While traveling, "she is looking for something more that a house cannot offer," said Chloe Zhao, the 38-year-old director, during a videoconference in Venice.
“The community is very important to them.
Each individual must find out how to meet their own needs when they go on the road.
But they come together because they need to be together ”, it is“ one for all and all for one ”, according to Frances McDormand.
The actress also recalled her “popular” origins and seems marked by the filming, for five months in seven American states, with many non-professional actors, but true “van dwellers”: “We wanted to get into the truth of their life ".
No "political message"
The film is carried by superb images of the great American expanses, and the magnetic presence of the 63-year-old actress, with singular features.
Describing a universe full of solidarity despite poverty, the film refrains from carrying a “political message”, underlined Frances McDormand.
Even when Fern is going to earn a few pennies by going to work on the line in an Amazon warehouse.
“The problem is much bigger than Amazon.
Yes, there are low wages, hard work, but at least it is work.
It allows many nomads to start ”, explained the director Chloé Zhao.
For spectators in France, we will have to wait a bit.
Nomadland
will
be
released on December 30 in French cinemas.
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