Ascension

Ascension

In the last parts of “Ascension,” a documentary by director Jessica Kingdon, an unnamed young woman who seems to be a social media influencer poses for a spontaneous photo shoot in the grounds of a luxurious hotel. Everything around her is opulence. But then cinematographer Nathan Truesdall reveals that there is a landscaper working hard under the heat right next to her. The two realities contained within the same frame or even just the jolt from one to another speaks loudly about income inequality.

The film is as absorbing as it is distressing, and it meanders like a stream of consciousness about the Chinese Dream. Kingdon does not supply any overt commentary beyond what’s communicated through her choice and arrangement of footage (and some frank talk from anonymous subjects), but “Ascension” riffs on many types of workplaces and career advancement programs.

On a larger scale, “Ascension” can be seen as a spiritual cousin to Rahul Jain’s “Machines,” an Indian film about poor people working in a textile factory that looks down; Kingdon’s movie looks up, tracing different levels of the Chinese social strata. Her images often have an air of spontaneity but leave no doubt about who benefits from and who pays for unending industrial growth; these faces are set against an ominous score by composer Dan Deacon.

The urban environment is covered in slogans advocating hard work as a way to attain a better life, these phrases are commonplace in the western world. These sayings are placing blame on those who suffer from poverty and lack of opportunity the most and after Kingdon introduces us to the literal job market they seem beyond ironic.

In one city center, recruiters ask potential employees what they want to be when filling out applications. To sit down while doing manual labor or have their dorm within walking distance from the factory would be considered low level perks. The only reason why companies hire working bees is so that they can produce more but if you are 38 years old or older then sorry, you’re no longer useful here.

To remind us that people are behind all of this nonstop producing, Kingdon catches workers fighting off sleep. For one moment there’s a young girl wearing a jacket that says “Be A Daydreamer, It’s Not Bad” which could not be any more bitterly ironic. One of the most dystopian sequences in the film involves creating sex dolls to order with customers specifying details about synthetic bodies assembled by women. These idealized figures represent complete commodification where everything including sexual satisfaction is for sale and customizable.

People on screen keep saying how much Chinese corporations want to beat America; this also invokes trickle down economics for wealth redistribution. In an age where personal branding is introduced as an avenue towards riches because physical goods aren’t always worth having anymore but if knowledge can’t make money then it’s useless according to an “instructor”.

When it stops examining those who believe they can make it to the top from below and starts looking at them straight on, Ascension should have delved deeper into how hyper-society has affected human connection but all we get are shots of raves or waterparks as an afterthought.

Following the creation of a new superrich class, businesses for these multimillionaires are growing in number such that they have directives which allow dehumanization in the name of progress. Kingdon enrolls in a school for boys that turns them into loyal bodyguards to be attached to VIP clients and another one where service staff are taught professionalism even when their bosses degrade or assault them.

It may be shocking to hear it put so bluntly in foreign land but I am sure the disparity between how personal is treated here versus elsewhere is not very much. It’s also something of note that women take classes on office etiquette which from our Western perspective seem outdated if not offensive this forces us to confront China’s cutting edge technology and relentless competitiveness with its particular cosmology.

Kingdon frames her revelatory film with verses from a poem by Zheng Ze, her great grandfather, written in 1912 as imperial dynasties fell and revolution transformed the country into the Republic of China. In that time of upheaval, he saw that insatiable development and leapfrogging into modernity would not necessarily lead to betterment for all.

Going up doesn’t always mean moving closer to enlightenment if you’re driven by desire for power over others. The fixation on being number one at any cost has been an American curse since forever, so it’d be beyond hypocritical to say things are much different here. With any luck though, holding up China’s most extreme enterprises as a mirror might reveal our own monstrousness.

Watch Ascension For Free On Gomovies.