Ash

Bluesky

Throughout all the events that take place inside the grounded space vessel in Flying Lotus’ SXSW contribution, Ash, one face is consistent. Placid, unmarred, never subject to the horrors we see elsewhere, it watches from the wall: Johannes Vermeer’s Girl With A Pearl Earring. She’s out of place in this stripped-down, almost clinical environment, but then, she was out of place in her time, her pale skin contrasting with her Turkish-style garb. She’s a stranger in a strange land – and nobody knows her name.

Like the Girl, Riya (Eiza González) is strangely dressed and navigating an unfamiliar space. It’s not just that she’s far from Earth, wandering a world of neon-tinged pinks and purples where something like the underside of a gigantic jellyfish pulses in the sky – it’s that she has no memory of how she got here, nor even, to any meaningful extent, who she is. Memories emerge as flashbacks as she strives to identify and overcome the immediate hazards of her environment. She remembers travelling with a group of people, eating dinner together – Brion’s boiled beans – and, bit by bit, she remembers horrific things happening to them. What she doesn’t know is who, or what, was responsible.

The mystery becomes more urgent with the arrival of Brion (Aaron Paul, best known as Jesse from Breaking Bad). At least, she thinks he’s Brion – she doesn’t really remember the time they spent together, or the relationships she had with the others, and over time she begins to suspect that what he’s telling her might not be entirely reliable. She does, however, accept his observations about her own unreliability – which gives him cause of suspicion of his own – and about the fact that the oxygen level in the ship has been compromised. They will have to work together if they want to survive.

Though anyone who has seen Lotus’ previous work, such as the striking Kuso, will recognise his stylistic flourishes, a good deal of the storyline here is reliant on a shorthand that draws on viewers’ familiarity with other films. Elements of Alien and Event Horizon are particularly prominent, and the work as a whole also bears a resemblance to 2009’s Pandorum. The director’s skill is such that it looks considerably more polished than most efforts to tap into this legacy, however, and González is charismatic enough to hold interest even when her character is (for good reason) inconsistent. She’s also a very watchable combatant (this is not a spoiler – as soon as you see that her commander is played by Iko Uwais, you’ll have some idea of what’s coming).

Lotus may love pretty things, but he doesn’t hold back on the gore. The special effects are exuberantly delivered, and though their point of focus is not nearly as innovative as some critics seem to think, they make an impression. Little things are also handled well. Riya attaches patches to her neck to suppress her subconscious impulses, but they also suppress her memory. Figuring out what’s going on requires her to face uncomfortable things about her own identity, and this is addressed visually through the troubling presentation of the patches themselves.

Though it’s never fully able to carve out a space of its own, and it struggles with a padded midsection where little of significance occurs, Ash delivers parts of its package very well. It certainly makes one wonder what Lotus might achieve with a stronger script - one more confident in its own identity. Genre fans may be somewhat underwhelmed in light of the festival hype, but most will find this entertaining.