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Ascension Movie Review

Ascension is a 2021 documentary film directed by Jessica Kingdon. It is a surprisingly honest, revelatory look into modern day China in all of its facets.

The film follows the Chinese dream through the social classes, prioritizing productivity and innovation. It was made by an American team of filmmakers, but at least Kingdon hails from the country, so that led to a more unbiased, honest look into a country that is often either too mystified or overly criticized.

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Ascension particularly focuses on the country’s insistent strive for new technological breakthroughs, innovations and ambitious projects. There is this one sequence that depicts the care and shipping of these extremely lifelike sex dolls. They looked so real that I was blown away. This is something that the movie does best – it showcases just how brilliantly innovative the Chinese are, in particular when it comes to technology.

However, there is also a clear-eyed look that the movie offers at the workers’ plight and especially the vast differences between the country’s classes, thus clearly hinting at the country’s capitalist instead of communist system going on. While there are vloggers and celebrities that are quite wealthy, there are the workers that work for inhumane number of hours in these very stressful, robotic conditions.

Ascension is at its best in its technical aspects. I was quite surprised at how cinematic this movie is. There are many scenes that are just gorgeously composed and a couple of takes are striking at what they represent. The score, the directing and the editing are all top-notch.

However, while it does depict the country’s strives to be number one and to be innovative in technology, it could have used more dialogue and more thematic resonance apart from the aforementioned couple. It’s an overly cinematic movie actually. I did love those technical aspects, but in a documentary I also want to learn as much as possible about the subject, which did not happen here.

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Ascension is a documentary that offers an honest look into Chinese society, in particular focusing on their wealth gap and constant striving for innovation. While the movie needed more dialogue and a more factual approach, this cinematic one that they used was still excellent, leading to many gorgeously composed shots and takes that are striking in their imagery and in what they represent.

My Rating – 4