Working China seen through the peephole

It doesn't surprise me that the director of the documentary

is a Sino-American filmmaker, Jessica Kingdon, someone with one foot in China and the other in the United States.

I say this because in the documentary there is something from both worlds that brings us closer to the way of thinking, doing and speaking of the country that works like the best,

, with the aim of enriching itself.

The feature film allows us to have a vision from the inside, as if we were looking through the peephole of the door, since most of the scenes are sequences recorded in factories, offices, companies, training centers, where it would be said that Kingdon planted his camera and his mic, and let the footage and conversations of the workers speak for themselves.

It also reveals a somewhat critical and detached Western view of this Eastern reality completely oriented towards maximum productivity.

A scene comes to mind where students undergoing training to become their own (successful) brand on the Internet announce their respective business plans.

Everyone agrees on the goal to be achieved: to earn millions of yuan within a few years.

Ascension

, which was nominated for best documentary at the last edition of the Oscars, reveals, on the one hand, the culture of ambition, well established in the Chinese mentality.

On the other hand, the shame of the West, which has never peered into the interior of that factory;

but that has turned China into the global factory and to whom we owe even the masks that protected us during the pandemic.

We recognize ourselves as your preferred customers, although we have not stopped to examine under what conditions it is produced, worked, and marketed.

That the orders arrive punctually, who, how and where they are produced brings it

I was embarrassed by the scene in a factory producing dolls for adults.

The workers had to follow the precise instructions of a client, received by email about the color of the nipple and the areola, and there they are seen applying it, between giggles, armed with the brush so that the consumer is satisfied.

Western, of course.

I felt dizzy when I saw troops of workers, and they were not soldiers, all dressed the same, parading before the superiors of their company.

They sang hymns of devotion to the brand, to the business leader, they applauded without conviction, but with a lot of energy and in a synchronized way to their hierarchical controls.

That scene, which seems to be taken from a play, is a piece of reality that takes place in the courtyard of a company.

This concoction of communism and capitalism gives me the

.

It would not go beyond the exotic if people's lives and freedom were not at stake.

On the street, red-crossers are filmed and projected in extreme close-up on a giant screen.

There where we celebrate the goal and the scorer, on the street in China, they denounce the infraction and the offender.

As the scenes unfold, each one more surreal, I feel overwhelmed at the thought that I am not watching a fictional film, that they are not sequences invented by a more or less inspired screenwriter.

As the scenes unfold, each one more surreal, I feel overwhelmed at the thought that I am not watching a fictional film, that they are not sequences invented by a more or less inspired screenwriter, but rather bits of life caught on the fly.

China appears before the cameras as the outstanding son of Western capitalism, only we have learned that money for money is not everything.

We know that along the way we have harmed the environment.

Schools appear to learn good manners: hug, smile, say hello at a work cocktail;

schools to become butlers because there are many rich people in China and they want, like Westerners, to have their own.

I am not saying this, but a trainer before a group of men and women who aspire to become personal assistants to billionaires.

The same woman advises them to see

, warns them that they won't have time for themselves or her family, and tells them to smile at her client.

If she humiliates them, you have to endure without losing your smile because that abuser is the hand that feeds them.

According to the teacher, there is always the consolation of cursing him behind her back.

As the documentary progresses, it shows how the more affluent classes, those rich who perhaps already employ butlers, enjoy that enrichment by shopping in malls capable of accommodating hundreds of people at a time, in restaurants that serve only

of the best french cuisine

The luxury and success enjoyed by a few rests on an immense mass of uniformed workers,

obedient, respectful

The contrast between the two opposing realities is revealed in a photo session in an outdoor park.

The model complains about the unbearable heat that she suffers while she has to pose for a few minutes for the photographer.

In the same scene, a poor gardener continues his task under the sun without question.

Ascension

can be seen on October 9 at Cineteca de Madrid (7:30 p.m.) and during the Another Way Film Festival at Filmin.

You can follow PLANETA FUTURO on

to our 'newsletter'

.