ASH IS PUREST WHITE – Review

A searing epic of a gangster couple’s romance set against a backdrop of a changing China spanning near two decades, director Jia Zhangke’s ASH IS PUREST WHITE is an unforgettable journey. Ranging from the spring of 2001 to nearly the present day, we see the shift in ordinary Chinese life in the north, far from Beijing and Hong Kong, from coal mining region and the Three Gorges region, while we follow the lovers’ rocky path. This is a striking epic drama likely to haunt you long after the film ends, a personal story with universal human themes of love, loss and heartbreak told in a powerfully realistic way, as well as a revealing look at the enormous changes in China during their lives.

Jia’s brilliant and moving drama has been a hit at film festivals around the world and has been hailed as masterpiece from an already lauded director, winning the Palme d’Or and Best Actress at Cannes. The story opens in April 2001, with local gangster leader Bin (Liao Fan) and his young girlfriend Qiao (Zhao Tao) in the Mah jongg parlor they run in a small town in a coal mining region. Bin is a big fish in this small pond, fawned over by his gangster underlings and dancing the night away to Western music, while running the gang’s illegal loan sharking and gambling businesses for the area’s older gang boss. The parallels to THE GODFATHER are unmistakable: respect is a big deal, the gangsters call each other brothers, and locals come to Bin with problems. Everything is very formal and organized.

Qiao is Bin’s assistant as well as his girlfriend, and her work as a courier takes her home to the coal mining town where her aging father lives alone. Dad is a sad broken man, still fighting the Revolution by urging the coal miners to rise up against the mine boss, even though coal business is fading and the mine is rumored to close soon. He’s also unhappy with his daughter’s gangster life, but she tells him he must let her go.

Despite her work, Qiao doesn’t consider herself a gang member as much as Bin’s girlfriend. Yet when she talks of settling down, Bin is non-committal. Their conversation proves revealing about both Bin and Qiao’s essential natures as well as their relationship. In another revealing scene, Bin decides to show Qiao how to shoot his illegal handgun, following an attack on him by a couple of young thugs. As she fires the gun, she turns her head away, as if rejecting what she is doing. It is a striking visual moment. The gun later plays a pivotal, tragic role in both their lives.

ASH IS PUREST WHITE spins its tale of a changing China and the characters’ lives side by side, jumping forward in time at crucial moments for both. At one point, the characters find themselves in the Three Gorges region just before the historical villages in the area are submerged by the massive dam being built. Tourists coming to see the area’s sights before they are lost under water mix with lost-looking local villagers being dislocated by the project.

Director Jia Zhangke is a masterful visual storyteller, using striking images and carefully built scenes to draw us into the drama if lives of these two people, as well as the sweeping epic of the wrenching changes the country is undergoing. Where the events take place, the scenes in the background and the minor characters that come and go, say as much as what is happening the characters in the story at that moment.

Although this is the story of a love affair, the real star is Zhao Tao as Qiao, who is really the focus of the story. The actress is the director’s longtime collaborator (and now his wife), and pair create magic on screen, with a character who evolves from a confident girl to a broken soul to a tough as nails woman. While both characters change as their circumstances do, their basic natures remain the same. Liao Fan is perfect as small-time gangster Bin, who projects a tough guy persona but harbors a hidden ego-driven brittleness. The raw emotion of the shifts in their lives and relationship is particularly affecting as it plays across Zhao’s sensitive, expressive face.

Power plays a central role in this story, both literally in the sense of coal, hydroelectric and nuclear and emotionally in the shifting relationship and fortunes of the two characters. The two leads are brilliant in their roles, taking the characters from a kind of cocky innocence to a worn realism, as the actors age from youth to middle age. Zhao is especially good, transforming herself from obedient girl to a self-possessed and masterful woman. She is a joy to watch.

ASH IS PUREST WHITE is a masterwork, an true epic tale of love, loss, change and power in a shifting China as well as heartbreaking, realistic personal story. ASH IS PUREST WHITE, in Mandarin Chinese with English subtitles, opens Friday, April 5, at Landmark’s Tivoli Theater.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars