|
Ash is Purest White
|
Spanning the 21st century so far, the story
follows the low-level criminal Bin (Liao Fan) and his girlfriend Qiao (Zhao
Tao) as, in various cities across China, they are separated by unequal prison
sentences, distance and estrangement. As their destinies and fortunes change,
their paths uneasily align again.
Jia’s film is, above all, the study of a complex
female character, brilliantly incarnated by Zhao (who is married to the
director). When we first see her in 2001, Qiao is not a stereotypical
gangster’s moll; she is mature, resourceful, part of the daily activities of
Bin’s criminal mob. When set adrift, alone and penniless, she intuitively scams
her way across the country, like the rogue hero of a road movie.
Qiao also embraces the criminal code of loyalty,
honour and righteousness – sometimes to her own detriment. On this level, the
film forms an intriguing network with the two major crime-gangster sagas of 2019: Marco Bellocchio’s The Traitor and Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman. Except that, of course, the “collateral damage”
visited on women is here the central topic – no longer merely glimpsed, in the
style of Francis Coppola’s The Godfather series (1972-1990),
looking startled on the edges of man-filled frames or disappearing behind
solemnly closing doors.
In Ash is Purest
White, Jia once again explores his well-developed taste for sudden temporal
ellipsis, naturalistic staging, understated expressive effects, sidelong
stories, gaudy pop music, and the occasional burst of special-effects fantasy. Focused
on both the historical big picture and the individual emotional plane, he
gravitates to characters who cling to values – in a world that steadily erodes
value of every kind, whether economic, emotional or moral.
© Adrian Martin September 2018 |