Ascension

Ascension is a mesmerising portrait of the brave new world of consumerist China and the people working on the frontline of the ascendant new style of turbo-capitalism. Chinese-American director Jessica Kingdon maintains an unobtrusive, observational style as we witness surreal scenes on the production lines of factories making everything from artificial trees to sex dolls and bizarre business-cult training sessions to obsessively target aspirational new consumers. Despite its non-judgemental style, the film effectively highlights the contradictions and class divisions in a rapidly changing society.

楼叹

‘ I think I’m drawn to spaces where the paradoxes of everyday life are made apparent, and nowhere are contradictions as magnified as in marketplaces and factories in contemporary China. I find people more easily recognize the conditions of absurdity within their own lives when experienced in a new context. I am not trying to offer answers about the moral value of China’s system, but to draw attention to the universal aspects of industrial production and consumption – and ask who is benefiting from these systems, and to what end are they operating. A larger question I am interested in is how societies organize themselves and determine values, and what matters in life.’

Director Jessica Kingdon, from an interview with Filmmaker Magazine.