Who are the opulent lead characters being juxtaposed with these sorrowful people? Well, that would be Zhao Qiao (Zhao Tan) and her lover, the gangster Guo Bin (Liao Fin). In first few years of the 21st-century, the two of them live a comfortable life that gets abruptly interrupted when Zhao Qiao pulls out a gun to defend Bin. She proceeds to go to prison for years for this action and when she gets out, she realizes Bin not only isn't there to greet her, but has moved on entirely with his life while she was in the slammer. Ash is Purest White follows Qiao from this point onward all the way up until 2018 as she tries to create a new life for herself, a task that seems to constantly have her cross paths with Bin.
The past and the present keep on intersecting over the course of Ash is Purest White, with a number of underlying themes and visual motifs (the most notable of the latter being an outdoor location situated near a volcano that's seen on the poster embedded above) conveying the idea that the past always finds a way of creeping into our present-day circumstances. No matter how hard we may try and run from it, the past always rears its head once again. Though Ash is Purest White suggests that, in some ways, life is, like time, a flat circle, some of the most distinctive parts of Jia Zhang-Ke's direction come from how he visually differentiates different passages of Qiao's life.
This trait is most notably seen in how Zhang-Ke frames scenes with Qiao early on in the film when she's just the right-hand lover of Bin. In this portion of the story, Zhang-Ke opts for cramped shots that instill a sense of claustrophobia in the viewer. Qiao is basically trapped, whether she realizes it or not, in a life that can only end in an unfulfilling manner, and the camerawork reflects this in a fantastic fashion. Zhang-Ke is extremely talented at making the viewer uneasy just on how cramped he makes the frame feel, you can practically feel other gangsters breathing down your neck thanks to the way the camera is placed into the middle of the room.
But once Qiao gets out of prison and her life opens up, so too does the frame. Here Zhang-Ke begins to go for primarily wider shots that allow for a visual reflection of not only Qiao's newly expanded options as a person but also how alone she is in the world. The people she went to prison for are gone, Qiao's got nobody and the wider shots help to emphasize how dwarfed she is by the world around her. Going for wider shots also allows for some intricately blocked one-take sequences that are impressive to watch unfold, particularly an extended hotel room conversation between Qiao and Bin that's remarkable in how much of the characters inner perspective it communicates with minimal camera movement.
Such restrained pieces of camerawork as well as the choice to tell this story over the course of nearly two decades really allow Zhao Tan a chance to excel as a lead performer in portraying how her character changes over this period of time. She's especially impressive as a performer in her mid-movie scenes where she's reunited with Bin. Tan makes the pain of this character viscerally felt in such subdued terms while such an attitude towards Bin makes for an effectively startling contrast with Tan's equally believable warm dynamic with Bin in the opening scenes of Ash is Purest White. Some things stay stagnant over time in Ash is Purest White, but on the other hand, the complex lead performance of Zhao Tan also shows just how much things can change as the years tick away.
No comments:
Post a Comment