'5 out of 5 stars. After getting rid of his inner demons through the feverish
nightmare vision of Subconscious Cruelty, Canadian filmmaker
Karim Hussain has taken a completely different direction with his
second feature. Instead of a shock performance hitting the audience's
face like a hand grenade, his second film is a hypnotically beautiful
fantasy vision, laced with a unique aesthetic.

In the story, an unknown creature has murdered the creator of
universe and unleashed the ability to produce miracles.
This ability is now in the hands of human beings who have
driven themselves into destructive envy and the horrible chaos
of suddenly becoming gods themselves. The only way to stop
this vicious circle is to destroy the creature who started it all.
Some have already tried it, but never returned from the
creature's hiding place. Now, three women of different
ages and backgrounds have decided that things have to
be stopped and climb up to face the murderer of God.

Hussain's film works like a slowly growing hypnosis.
After fifteen minutes, you are hooked into the film,
like a hard drug which has taken over your senses.
Ascension is an incredible cinematic trip to the unknown,
to miracles, to horror and to surrealism, but also to
the inner world of humanity and its dark corridors, where
envy, jealousy and hunger for power are conceived.

Marie-Josée Croze, Barbara Ulrich and the newcomer
Ilona Elkin (born Utriainen), as the three leading ladies,
all give outstanding performances which fit perfectly
together. The film's dialogue is a chapter in its own.
It's extremely rare to come across a film like Ascension,
in which every word of dialogue holds more weight and
meaning than many entire screenplays. The symbolic
references in the story are also perfectly handled,
clean and beautifully conceived rhetoric visions.

The cinematography and the music are both more than essential
parts of Ascension's masterful body of work. Being already
recognized as the ultra-talented cinematographer that he is,
director-writer Hussain stands again behind the camera himself
and produces some of the most majestic images of his career.
Behind the film's hypnotic tunes also stands a familiar name: one
of the giants of North America's electronic music scene, David Kristian.'
TUOMAS RISKALA - HOHTO MAGAZINE (Finland's biggest Film Journal)

'Open your mind and prepare yourself for a session of hypnosis…
A chilling and controversial film that plays like a Tarkovsky film
with drops of blood…Witnessing ASCENSION is like submerging
yourself into one of the most fascinating and absorbing cinema
exercises in recent memory…ASCENSION sends a charge
throughout its viewers, but caution to those who wish to leave
their brains at home and not use a single neuron…
You will need all of them to enjoy the film.
This is a movie for people who are awake!

ASCENSION is a dream, a valiant parable, and a majestic
lesson in cinema, that lives through its silences and relishes
in its words. This is purely creative cinema hat operates on its own
internal logic, blasted with an ironic and viciously complex
sense of humour. Karim Hussain signs the direction, the script,
cinematography and some of the production.
He offers to us a cryptic and enigmatic hard drug
that overtakes our muscles, neurons and motor skills
to take control of our bodies and transform it into one big,
gaping open mind. ASCENSION is not simply a movie.
It is a state of consciousness. A dialog on humanity and the
three stages of existence (or more precisely, that of woman,
the only being that can truly give birth).

It's an ambiguous question that opens many roads,
a visual poem that begins as totally abstract, but comes
together in its own right once we've reached its finale…
This is a strong platter served by a Canadian poet,
who uses cinema to churn about ideas and offer us
a rigorous and splendid voyage. ASCENSION is pure
cinema, not pulp chewed up for a dumbed-down mass.
It's prime meat you consume to feed your soul.
It's a small miracle of untainted vision; a fever dream
and a hypnosis session. It's a drug to absorb into
our bodies and reflect on. Next stop…The sky.'
EDMOND ROCH - EL PERIODICO (Spain)

'The film's quirky horror works both emotionally
and intellectually, in some ways like a cross between
Michael Tolkin's THE RAPTURE, Andrei Tarkovski's
STALKER and Vincenzo Natali's CUBE.
Like THE RAPTURE, ASCENSION uses the truth
of Christianity as the premise for its horror story -
but in this case, the reality of that Divinity
also makes it mortal and its master plan fallible.'
EARL JACKSON JR. - HAWAII INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

'ASCENSION is a film you have to witness with an open mind,
without falling back on the traditions of conventional cinema.
ASCENSION is a necessary poison, with a great story,
that the viewer can either take or leave… An excellent work.'
DANIEL PRADA - GAY BARCELONA.NET

'Another boundary pusher would be Karim Hussain's
existential feature ASCENSION. Hussain has created
an audacious film that creates an astonishingly bleak
universe for the filmgoer…The dialogue is intriguing, in an
almost Pinteresque fashion, making for a strange and obtuse
movie that will allow audiences, should they allow themselves,
to fully absorb themselves into Hussain's wavelength.'
MATTHEW HAYS - MONTREAL MIRROR

'A radical film beyond the fringe of conventional cinema that makes
no concessions and is guaranteed to leave no one indifferent.'
SITGES INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

'As the camera is allowed to linger on architectural details,
providing, as it were, time for reflection, Ascension proves
its mastery over the distinctiveness of film as an art form…
Andrei Tarkovsky, with his meditative tempo
and condensed simplicity springs to mind.'
SOFIA BULL - STOCKHOLM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

'A beautifully shot film with a vicious
sense of humour coiled at the bottom of it.'
DIMITRI KATADOTIS - HOUR MAGAZINE

'Neil Labute meets Eraserhead…Could develop a cult following.'
VARIETY

copyright © 2007 screenmachine,ca