The Final Exit of the Disciples of Ascensia

Five Greats from Five Years Ago: Part 2 of 5

The Final Exit of the Disciples of Ascensia (2019) is 45 minutes long. You can watch it on Youtube here. It is the fifth and final part of director Jonni Peppers’ Wasteland project, a five part series of films that, as Peppers puts it on her website in her “unfinished artist’s statement”:

“Each of these films builds on top of themes established by the last, and while they can all be viewed separately, when viewed all together they become a cohesive piece that discusses the subjectivity of reality, worldviews defined by emotion rather than logic, mental illness, and living life in the midst of pain.”

While you could start at the beginning of these wonderful short films, I recommend starting with part five: the longest and final of the films. It’s so wholly realized that The tone of the film strikes immediately as the dreamy sadness of the score (it reminded me specifically of this Sufjan Stevens track if the dysphoria were to be ratcheted up) as the film’s prologue introduces us to Ascensia and her backstory. She wakes up one day, tells her husband she’s going for a walk, and promptly gets abducted and taken ‘home.’ She is charged with the responsibility by the abductors of finding all of their children on Earth and bringing them home as well. She accepts this responsibility. Thirty years later, she is the head of a family of people who struggle to find community elsewhere. Some might call it a cult. Are they right? Tune in next week right now to find out! 

I imagine that, for some, The Final Exit of the Disciples of Ascensia will be an eye-opening film. An artistic catalyst of the highest order and something that manages to somehow, inexplicably, shed new light on modern malaise. I defy you to watch this and not feel stirred. At first, you might be tempted to take a look at a few images from the film and write it off as something of an experimental student film. As if rather than it being a short movie, it’s a very long project. Nope. It takes about a minute for you to forget that you’re watching animation that makes no attempt at realism. Landscapes, emotions, body movement, cityscapes, perspectives in rooms, transitions: this film is a testament to the suggestive power of animation, sound design, and great storytelling. It’s also funny, just like this t-shirt that you can buy on Jonni Peppers’ website. The backstory of one of Ascensia’s followers and how she came to compete at the Olympics before joining the group is a story you’d expect to hear from a friend at 4 in the morning. You’d choke on whatever you were drinking at the sheer audacity of its telling. The feel of a story that, before seeing The Final Exit, I would’ve thought impossible to capture on film.

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The Final Exit of the Disciples of Ascensia
Written by Jonni Peppers, Jenna Caravello, Haein Michelle Heo; Directed by Jonni Peppers
2019
45 minutes
English
Recommended way to watch (at time of publication): Free on Youtube