Review: 'Ascension' is a thoughtful, impressionistic look at the 'Chinese dream' of consumerism and capitalism

What does it look like when millions of people try to dive into consumer culture and capitalist acquisition all at the same time? It looks a lot like China in the 21st century, as captured by filmmaker Jessica Kingdon in the endlessly fascinating documentary “Ascension.”

Kingdon spent two years, 2018 and 2019, filming at more than 50 locations around China, getting an close look at an economy of making and selling, buying and earning, playing and working. It’s called the “Chinese Dream,” and it’s as elusive and difficult to define as the “American Dream.”

The first scenes show recruiters on the street of a big city, trying to get workers to sign up to work in one of the different factories that are manufacturing goods for the rest of the world. The come-ons involve wage hikes, bonuses, and the perks of cafeterias, dormitories and other amenities. 

Then the recruits board buses to the factories, where they make spray-bottle tops, processed poultry, blue jeans, plastic Christmas trees, Ralph Lauren jackets, “Keep America Great” merchandise and — in one unsettling and weirdly appealing sequence — life-sized and lifelike sex dolls.

But for many Chinese people Kingdon features are striving to sell another product: Themselves. Kingdon follows social-media influencers as they teach seminars on how to turn one’s personality into a brand. At other corporate workshops, people are picking up the tricks of “business etiquette” or being a security guard.

At every step, Kingdon depicts an economy in which nearly everyone is striving to make money, buy stuff, and fill up high-tech amusement parks. They are trying to unlock the secret of capitalism through the trappings of Western business. They follow Thomas Edison’s maxim about invention being 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration; they’ve worked up the perspiration, and are just waiting for the inspiration.

Kingdon doesn’t apply a particular narrative to what she’s showing; her snapshots are more observational, like a Frederick Wiseman documentary that strings together moments to examine system processes. The result is an eye-popping mosaic portrait of a nation on the move, though unsure of what exactly it’s moving toward.

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‘Ascension’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, March 4, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Not rated, but probably PG-13 for images of sex dolls being manufactured. Running time: 98 minutes; in Mandarin, with subtitles.