Ash is Purest White (2018)

Ash is Purest White is a Chinese language film which premiered at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. This Palme D'Or finalist finally made its way to the Indian cinema halls almost a year later. Starring Zhao Tao as Zhao Qiao and Liao Fan as Guo Bin this film seems like the story of Qiao and Bin, but it actually is the tragedy of Qiao. 

In the 2001 part of the film, Bin and Qiao are walking in the grassy wilderness where they stop and stare at a volcano in the distance. Qiao remarks, “ Volcanic Ash is very pure, isn't it? Anything that burns at a high temperature is made pure.” Bin replies, “no one would know if you burned to a crisp.” This exchange offers the viewer a hint into the psychology of the characters and the direction they will take in this film.  

Directed by Jia Zhangke, this film starts off with scenes of a bus journey with seemingly regular people in our frame. The grainy documentary like footage which makes the viewer assume that they are watching a handheld camera video. This helps lend the feel of an old China that proves to be crucial to the progress of the film. 

The camera moves onto the other passengers in the bus and we finally are given a glimpse of  Zhao Qiao. Qiao is shown as one who has strong roots within her community and has an aversion to ballroom as it is in her words “too western.” She is in love with Guo Bin, who is the head brother of the Jianghu. 

Based on the progression of this storyline and a plethora of western films it would be safe to assume that Jianghu could be a translation of the mob or an organised crime group in China. (The customary subtitles were absent from the screen at the utterance of this word)

Soon, Bin falls victim to an attack by young pretenders and has to brawl his way out before he is overpowered. This leads to Qiao intervening and sacrificing herself for Bin. 

The scene of her interrogation shows that she is aware of exactly what she is getting into with her deception of the law enforcement authorities, yet she does so of her own free will, this marks the beginning of her 'burning at a high temperature.'

This film weaves together some of the real life happenings in China (the Three Gorges dam on the Yangtze River) and presents them to the audience with a voiceover (the ferry announcer) which through informing the passengers is seen as a commentary on the displacement of people in a changing world. This happens when we are reintroduced to Qiao in 2006 after she has served her 5 year prison sentence and sets out to locate Bin. 

There is a wonderful shot in this scene with Qiao drifting on the river and framed as a silhouette against the mountains and the twilight sky. It symbolically shows the old Qiao fading away to give rise to a new version of herself- pure and having risen from the fire. 

Zhao Qiao grows as the film progresses. She is still innocent at heart and gets duped, but quickly learns that the world is not what it once was and adapts. She misses the way things were and this is crucial to her character. 

Qiao who appears like a delicate porcelain doll in the initial part of the film is transformed by her half a decade imprisonment which lends a sort of hard edge to her character. A decade later, she finally evolves into a fearsome woman who commands respect from the Jianghu. 

However, what didn’t evolve was her ability to recognise a past situation recurring, thus leaving her to be emotionally burnt to a crisp with no one knowing, but also being purified due to being metaphorically burnt by her one true love as realisation finally dawned upon her.  

The movie progresses slowly and its runtime of 136 minutes would feel long when you decide to narrate the story to a friend. They would be like, "is this film really that long?" 

This "lengthy" runtime is a result of long pauses before replies and multiple reflections by Qiao of life around her. These extra long pauses in the post 2006 interactions between Bin and Qiao helped emphasize the realization dawning slowly upon Qiao. 

Ash is Purest White showed me a China that is worlds apart from the China I have become accustomed to witnessing through popular culture. There is more to China than the glitz and glamour of the skyline which every Hollywood movie shows when they visit the world's most populous country. It focuses on the dangers of not learning from the past.

The western music combined with the weird ballroom dancing at a funeral and a bizarre and out of the blue appearance of a UFO serve as a respite from the brooding pace of this film which is a 16 year tale of love, betrayal and has traces of the impact of a rapidly evolving capitalistic society.

This simple metaphor helping structure the entire story was something I loved. It is a film that will help you use the metaphor in your life and help you grow as well as looking back at your life and realising how the toughest of times have made you the best version of yourself.