‘Ascension’ Review: Oscar-Nominated Doc Will Change the Way You Look at China
variety.comPeter Debruge Chief Film CriticNo matter what your image of modern China, it’s nowhere near complete until you’ve seen it through New York-based, China-observing director Jessica Kingdon’s eyes.
Working in the mold of photographers Lauren Greenfield (“Queen of Versailles”) and Edward Burtynsky (“Manufactured Landscapes”), the Tribeca Film Festival winner trains her camera on the impacts of China’s fast-exploding economy in the Oscar-nominated “Ascension,” leaving audiences with striking and frequently absurd scenes burned into their imaginations.
Without contextualizing what we’re seeing, the hi-def collage asks us to make sense of a society even more stratified and excessive than our own.Kingdon’s curiosity spans the class divide, from assembly lines where women prepare silicone sex dolls for demanding clients to private dining rooms where nouveau-riche elites learn how to eat a banana with fork and knife.
The title, taken from a poem written by her great-grandfather Zheng Ze, refers not to the rise of China (as one might presume) so much as the many obstacles blocking upward movement in a time of rapid change.
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