NOMADS

Written and Directed by John McTiernan. Starring Pierce Brosnan, Lesley Ann-Down, Mary Woronov. 16:9 enhanced. 1.85:1 widescreen.

The plot of NOMADS is this: Lesley-Anne Warren is a doctor who treats a crazed Pierce Brosnan one night in the ER. Right before he dies, he whispers something in her ear and somehow transfers his memories to her. After he is dead she starts to experience flashbacks of what happened to him in the last two days of his life. Brosnan was a french anthropologist who had spent the previous 10 years in the field, and was taking a teaching job as a concession to his wife. On the first day in their new house he notices some shady looking people who vandalise his house. Intrigued by their look, he slips into anthropologist mode, grabs a camera and starts to follow them.



He follows them for 31 hours straight. They don't sleep and are always moving from place to place. Ultimately, they notice him so he breaks off his study. They are Nomads, of a type that is not quite human. The point is made that they are spirits who roam the earth. Most people do not notice them (probably cannot physically see them), but a few unlucky one do notice them. Once noticed by the nomads, they are generally killed by them in a violent manner. Because of the manner in which they die, they become Nomads themselves, which is kind of similar to the whole Ju-on concept I suppose. As I said, it was an interesting idea, but handled too abstractly.

He is visited in a dream by a nun who warns him to run from them, but of course he doesn't.



The film is "arty" and generates an effective atmosphere, but the framing structure doesn't work well. The idea is gripping enough that a linear approach following Brosnan's character would have worked better. I have a novelization of this by Chelsea Quinn-Yarbo that is quite good and have always meant to catch up with the movie itself. It's generally bad reviews didn't help me to become motivated to tracking it down. Anyway, overall I quite liked it. It also features a tremendous dream sequence (that may not have been a dream). The major problem is a needlessly abstract and disjointed narrative.

Notice the capture of the man/nomad falling. McTiernan would use the shot to better effect in DIE HARD.