Movie Review: Ermo (Essay Sample)

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Movie Review: Ermo
The film Ermo explicates the themes of capitalism, consumerism, western values, modernity and traditional values. While Ermo is set and largely casted in a Northern China small village, the film exemplifies a plan of the capitalism and globalization processes in Deng era’s economic reforms. The director of the film presents economic and social liberalization as the ultimate paradox and dream of the country’s holistic agenda of globalization and modernization. In a sense, the film depicts the challenges that capitalism has on family and societal ties (Ermo, 1994). One can confidently argue that the film adopted a persistent residual ethnographical approach in defining china as a country. Sharing on the approach used in previous cinema, Ermo has a primitive, rural and exotic representation of the Chinese society.
Further, at the very center of the movie narrative is a modern setting in opposition to the conditions of capitalism and economic reforms that characterized the Deng era. In this regard, the film acts as a critique of the modernization agenda adopted during this period. Arguably, Ermo stages the ironies, contradictions and irregular cultural formations between the local and the international community. The television content as seen in the TV store is a good example of how westernization is rapidly influencing Chinese culture and traditions (Ermo, 1994). As seen in the film, members of the society including Ermo are eager to have a share of the good life the answer to which is capital accumulation.
In conclusion, the film Ermo is a good representation of the conflicting societal desires to accumulate wealth and imitate the western way of life. Further, t...