Ascension

Job advertisements are being shouted in a street: assembly work at a factory, hourly rates, dormitory provided. People get on the bus. Water bottles are made in one factory, sex toys somewhere else, phones somewhere else again. The camera follows the line. Then it goes up: sales training courses, social media consultancy, a butler school, etiquette lessons for the rich. At the top there is a luxury hotel and models posing underwater. The documentary does not speak; there is no narrator, no interview and no context. Jessica Kingdon directs. It is an American production and the documentary was shot in China. The film was nominated for the Oscar for best documentary. Its form is observational; the camera enters a scene, stays a while and leaves. The matter it treats is the notion called the Chinese dream; the documentary shows it through economic rungs. Its structure is ordered as an ascent; it moves from production towards consumption. The sound design is an important part of it; machine noise and gaps are used deliberately. The documentary passes no judgment and leaves the conclusion to the viewer. Some scenes are comic; the talk at the training courses undoes itself. Its limit is method; there is no context, nobody is introduced, and the narrative builds no story. Who it is for: viewers who like observational documentary and are curious about the Chinese economy. Who it is not for: it has no narrative, it is distant, and the ending gives no closure.