Ascension (2021)

By: Mike Ward on Thursday, December 23

NR Running Time: 97 mins

SHOULD I SEE IT?

YES

  • Jessica Kingdon’s Ascension is an oftentimes fascinating glimpse of a Chinese culture, desperate to find a purpose in life, much like our very own.

  • Takes an observational tone, without narration, title cards, or interviews, allowing viewers to fill in thoughts and takeaways which are organically created and not spoonfed.

  • Almost worth seeing for one extended sequence in a pleasure doll factoryalone, Ascension has a unique cadence which makes the film impossible to turn away from once it draws you in.

NO

  • The lack of narration, interviewees, and conventional documentary framing, may leave some at a loss as to what Kingdon is aiming for here.

  • This will not be for everyone. The shapelessness and freeform storytelling will lose some folks.

  • If your thought in learning about this is, “Why do I care about China?” followed by some comment about Communism, then this is clearly not going to get a fair shot with you as a viewer.


OUR REVIEW

To the lay viewer, a documentary about the Chinese economy and the multitude of ways Chinese citizens are caught in the daily grind of becoming global leaders in manufacturing, trade, and influencing may seem pointless. In Jessica Kingdon’s observational documentary Ascension, she steps back and presents us several examples of workers of many kinds, in lots of different professions, bustling to make money and better their financial and professional situation.

Kingdon serves as director, editor, co-producer, cinematographer, and sound recordist on the piece. As an obvious labor of love for her, Ascension is oftentimes a stunning feature-length debut for a storyteller cutting her teeth as a producer and director of short films in the past. 

Kingdon’s non-narrative film begins with laborers working in factories and an onboarding session where workers learn about the ins and outs of their particular new job. Initially, we watch social media influencer wanna-be’s maximizing every possible aspect of their smartphones to make YouTube videos, TikToks, Instagrams and find their niche in social media influencing. 

We move into the factories, a more common place for people of working age to earn a wage. The assembly lines keep running and we see the tenuous marriage of technology and human labor working (for now) in coexistence. There’s an urgency that leaps off the screen - is it the frenetic nature of the work itself? The concern that humans may be replaced by technology? Is it the realization that there is minimal margin of error? 

While Ascension does not provide title cards or talking heads to illustrate its points, Kingdon, with an effective string-heavy score by Dan Deacon, lets her footage do all the work. The parallels she draws between China and the rest of the modernized world are striking. Later, we move into “etiquette training,” which consists of nearly all women and one man in a class designed to prepare them for a life in the corporate, professional world. 

Once you fall into the cadence of Kingdon’s vision and editing rhythm, Ascension becomes a fascinating comparable between life in China and the United States (or say, Canada, or the United Kingdom, or really anywhere).

Much has been made about one of the longer segments in the film, and it is indeed the film’s best. Kingdon nonchalantly takes us into a facility where a group of women create silicone sex dolls. Honestly, it is kind of astonishing, a revelation, and unsettling all at the same time. The care and concern shown in making sure the female anatomy is exaggerated properly (I guess?), while also ensuring that mouths are the right size, areola drawn and colored in appropriately, and buttocks designed and ironed properly, is fascinating to watch unfold.

China has recently banned or censored everything from cryptocurrency to “effeminate men” on television to Marvel movies and Chloé Zhao. So to see a thriving Chinese sex doll factory, employing dozens of women to create exaggerated female pleasure dolls is quite remarkable to say the least.

If that seems like a bizarre tangent for Ascension to take, honestly it fits directly into Kingdon’s visual poem. At its core, Ascension just wants to embed and immerse, take us into a place and a world we often theorize about and discuss, but seldom see - at least to this degree. What emerges is a story about an individual’s worth and what it means to pursue, what likely would best be described from an American as, the “Chinese Dream.”  

What are we all ascending to anyway? Well, in the film’s final act we begin to see how Kingdon fits everything together. The enigmatic, can-do attitude of influencers melds into the assembly line workers doing the same thing day after day to make a living. The individuals who adhere to proper attire and etiquette, a modernized and willing subservience, likely do not realize that they will never reach the financial prowess of the very people they tend to and support. 

The need to make ourselves matter, to leave our imprint on the world can take many different forms. The need to achieve success can be as nebulous a term to some as it can be easily definable by others. Ascension powerfully shows us generations of people trying to figure out where and how they matter - to themselves, to their work and to the people around them.

CAST & CREW

Documentary

Director: Jessica Kingdon
Release Date: October 8, 2021 (theatrical); November 15, 2021 (Paramount+)
MTV Documentary Films