Ascension
Ascension is an impressionistic portrait of China’s industrial supply chain that reveals the country’s growing class divide through staggering observations of labor, consumerism, and wealth. Structured in three parts, the documentary ascends through the levels of the capitalist structure: workers running factory production, the middle class training for and selling to aspirational consumers, and the elites reveling in a new level of hedonistic enjoyment.
In traveling up the rungs of China’s social ladder, we see how each level supports and makes possible the next while recognizing that the “Chinese Dream” remains an elusive fantasy for most.