70
It empowers Chinese citizens while also shining a light on the exploitation and oppression they face in the workplace and job market.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
90
Never appearing to judge any situation, Kingdon confidently allows the images to tell a fascinating, universal story of inequality and class division, revealing a country that feels more like a capitalist society than anyone’s idea of a Communist state.
60
The New York Times by Beatrice Loayza
This aestheticization of Chinese society doesn’t exactly sit well with this viewer: one wonders if this counts as a kind of tourism.
90
The Hollywood Reporter by Dan Fienberg
Presented with no narrative and limited structure, Ascension is a collection of breathtaking images and revelatory vignettes that position China as a simultaneously alien and completely universal cultural and industrial landscape, never spelling out which direction points toward progress.
90
Los Angeles Times by Roxana Hadadi
Through her unfussy direction and sly editing, Kingdon’s collection of vignettes is a reminder that the destructively frenzied cycle of consumption and waste always trickles down.
91
The Playlist by Warren Cantrell
Stylistically, Ascension borrows from the city-symphony genre at times, with long stretches passing without any dialogue as the camera whips past and through recycling depots, cell phone assembly lines, and poultry plants. There are no talking heads in the picture or any camera-facing reflections to guide the audience along a narrative, making it less cinéma vérité and more direct cinema in style. It is an effective approach.