Personally, I like Ash Is Purest White more than either of these other estimable “late” works, and not only because it so deliberately evokes aspects of Jia’s early 21st-century ascent. It’s more to do with the move from an ensemble approach—which flattens out and essentializes characters, rendering them components of a larger machine— to something so yoked to individual psychology.
Adam Nayman
Oktober 3, 2018