Ash Is Purest White is a Chinese crime drama written and directed by Zhangke Jia.
It follows the life of Qiao, played by Tao Zhao, over three time periods (2001, 2006 and 2018) from her life as a carefree moll to an ex-con chasing the past, and the film handles this development without really breaking a sweat.
This apparent effortlessness is Ash Is Purest White’s main sticking point: if the slow pace grips you then you’ll love the film, but I have a feeling that it will bore a lot of people.
Zhao’s leading performance is tremendous due to the subtlety she possesses on screen, often juxtaposed against mobsters who insist on hamming their own portrayals up.
When Qiao is content with her life, she glides around the frame, but in the third act of the film she appears to be carrying the weight of the world. Zhao looks tired and drained and depicts the complete transformation her character has undergone.
However, it was Zhao’s performance in the second act that I found most engaging. She exudes conviction in everything she does, from her manner of speaking to how she walks – without words, this tells you that Qiao is different. There are also a couple of situations in which Zhao can show off a smile that cuts through characters and conveys anything but happiness. This ability to turn instantly kept me gripped whenever she was on screen.
The structure is unusual as it felt like there was a compressed film in act one, a sequel in act two then an epilogue in the third, the first two were each marked with a particular event to provide world context: mine closures in one and rising sea levels in two.
Act one plays at a slightly faster pace (well, relatively) due to focussing on the jianghu and Qiao is almost incidental in all of that. Most of what she does is to establish a reference point to look back on after she changes so much throughout the rest of the film.
It is at the end of our time in 2001 that we see what is essentially the story’s climax (although not the emotional one) just a third of the way in. It’s a brilliantly crafted, utterly brutal fight scene all played out in one shot with no music. The scene, while not in keeping with the steady pace found in the rest of the movie, actually encapsulates it: brutal, quiet, real.
The second act, after Qiao has been released from prison, is where Ash Is Purest White shines due to it being about Qiao and Qiao alone. While Bin was a fine character played with intensity by Fan Liao, I never felt that he went beyond the commonly done ‘once proud man is broken’.
This is where we see her go down a path that you wouldn’t have expected throughout the first act but makes complete sense why it happens, as she portrays traits that she has clearly picked up from her time with the jianghu and is more authoritative. She swindles many people in clever ways that she wouldn’t have been able to initially, but you are always reminded of the melancholia that shrouds her situation.
Everything that is done is done with composure and feels meticulously thought out. The film seldom kicks into gear, instead opting for subtle emotional moments that beat the audience into submission with misery due to never actually going according to plan.
I did often find myself waiting for a payoff that never came – and the third act in particular was akin to a balloon slowly losing its air – which on reflection made several moments feel like misery for the sake of misery, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t swept up in the life of Qiao, thanks massively to Tao Zhao, and the film’s themes of believing deception and the corruption of purity.
There is a conversation between Qiao and Bin about the purity of volcanic ash in which she says, “anything that burns at a high temperature is made pure” to which he replies, “this damn place… no one would know if you burned to a crisp”. Ash Is Purest White observes what happens when you do burn something seemingly pure to a crisp.
Even now while writing this review I am unsure regarding my final verdict on the film, however the fact it’s been playing on my mind so much is testament to what it does do right.