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Ermo
viewed October 30, 1999 on video
For further
details on film, click here.
A beautiful, patiently rendered story about the
budding materialism in rural China and its effects on a
small town noodle-maker. The parochial realism and
storyline draws many parallels with Zhang Yimou's The
Story of Qiu Ju (one of my favorites): a
strong-minded woman asserts herself, at the expense of
her community and even her family, who through her
efforts she intended to help in the first place.
We have rural China in its simple splendor:
breathtakingly barren but poetic landscapes; a groaning
pig in death throes; ignorant gazes into huge TV sets;
and sexual frustration on the part of everyone; diverted
in several directions and wreaking havoc in a close-knit
neighborhood. This is the movie I want to make if
only I had the
connections and the resources. Alas, I may never make a
movie about my beloved China; someday I may even get
bored with social realism, but not before I see its
cinematic manifestation in, my present un-Hollywoodized
life. If I can't make one about China, maybe in my
beloved 'burbs, without the enamel job of ironic
detachment a la Todd Solodnz.
Ermo doesn't achieve the improbable range of
hilarious satire and sincere sentiment found in Qiu Ju,
but it offers other, more meditative pleasures. It
posits the theory that consumerism is modern woman's way
to deal with her husband's impotence. Compared to
the alternative, sleeping with the neighbor, slaving
away to save up cash does seem a more ethical way to
rechannel sexual energies. Thus we have some oddly
erotic scenes of Ermo sweating and grunting in the
middle of the night -- making noodles to sell the
following day. In the climactic scene where they
bring the TV home, Ermo crawls into a corner, exhausted,
and it becomes clear that Ermo's labors to acquire the
set was really another kind of labor. Under the
grip of the one-child policy, Ermo wasn't just hoping to
please her son; she was basically buying him a new
brother. And what an addition to the family --
when the whole town gathers around the house to watch
it, the Nativity comes quickly to mind.
The subplot of the truck-driver neighbor's intentions
is fairly obvious from the beginning, but it builds up
so pleasantly that when the moment we're waiting for
finally comes, it surprises us because it seems so
inappropriate. Liu Pei Qi gives the film's best
performance as Blindman the neighbor; he's made quite a
name for himself in China, which is remarkable since he
looks like a mule. His exquisitely provincial countenance
and well-mannered generosity, tinged with human frailty,
sum up the qualities of this fine film.
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