"When Ruoma Was Seventeen" is a beautiful film. Director Zhang Jiarui's is an excellent artist. No wonder "When Ruoma Was Seventeen" has been invited by 28 countries to be in their international film festivals and it has won several awards.The setting of the story is in Yunnan Province that is famous for its beautiful scenery and landscape. The story is told as beautifully as its' background scenery. After I watched the film, I just feel refreshed and purified. And watching this film is a wonderful and happy experience. I kept thinking about this film once I finished it.The film is about a 17-year old Hani girl named Ruoma and its' story is about the things happened to Ruoma when she was 17 years old. Hani is a minority ethnic group living in Yunnan province. Although the modern world surrounds them is so sophisticated, busy, and noisy, these people still preserve their simple life style and the self-sustaining way of living pretty much unaffected by the outside world. Hani people have good hearts and simple mindset, and they are sincere all because of the simple and pure life style they have. So you can imagine how lovely, pure, naive Ruoma is. She is the uncontaminated gem and jewel in this modern world. Everyday Ruoma makes a short trip to the town to sell roast corn. The interaction between her and the modern world takes place gradually. The outside world fascinates her and she is curious about a lot of stuff she did not know.When Ruoma appears on the screen, she is so pure and beautiful like the beautiful mountains and rivers that nurtured her. And she always amazes me with her way of thinking because we would never expect a person to be so sincere. Somehow I wish people could be all like that, then how beautiful the world would be. I think this is why the city boy photographer Ruoma met likes or probably loves her. Ruoma on the other hand is longing for the experience she did not have before such as experience in the elevator in the skyscrapers. People just long for something they could not have.At the end of the movie, Ruoma grows up a bit after she had some interesting experience and some sad experience when she was seventeen. She is still pure and uncontaminated, but what she has experience definitely is good to her.It is an excellent film. It is a journey of art from the beginning to the end of the film.