This
is Shanghai, but not the glass and steel megapolis Chinese state media tries to
project. It is a city of strife and toil—and immigrants from throughout the
assorted Chinas. Independent Chinese auteur Jia Zhangke creates a multi-faceted
portrait of the Mainland’s go-go financial capital that is part city-symphony
and part oral history. Ten years after its initial screenings, Jia’s thoughtful
ode to Shanghai finally gets a proper American release when I Wish I Knew opens
this Friday in New York, at the Metrograph.
Technically,
I Wish I Knew was commissioned to commemorate the Shanghai World Expo,
but you can tell Jia will not be towing a party line when his first interview
subject’s reminiscences primarily focus on juvenile street gangs and the
hardships his family endured during the Cultural Revolution. He will return to
the Gang of Four’s institutionalized madness later in the film, at even greater
length.
Indeed,
Jia is drawn to somewhat marginalized figures, like the daughter of one of
Shanghai’s most notorious gangsters. Besides the Cultural Revolution, the
Japanese occupation and Taiwan’s White Terror also loom large in the film.
Although this is technically a film about Shanghai, there is clearly a sense
the mega-city is intrinsically linked to Hong Kong and Taipei, which explains
why Beijing is cracking down so hard on Hong Kong and why the Taiwan’s recent
independence-affirming election induced a panic attack.
In
between interview segments, Jia follows his wife and muse Zhao Tao as she
strolls through the city, but instead of the glitzy shopping district, their
perambulations mostly take us through docks, bridges, and post-industrial
districts. You can tell the disparities of Shanghai just from Jia’s exterior
shots.
Huang
Baomei is the exception that proves the rule. The former “model worker” was
hailed by Mao and even starred as herself in a propaganda film based on her
life. Yet, when Jia follows her back to the textile factory where she labored
her entire life, there is nothing left of the state enterprise but rubble and
rubbish.
It
is safe to describe I Wish I Knew as a meditative film that unfolds at a
deliberate pace. However, it is fully loaded with striking images and there are
a number of insights observant viewers may glean from it. It is not as
structured as Jia’s previous film, 24 City, but thematically they are
not so very different. Highly recommended for attentive audiences, I Wish I
Knew opens this Friday (1/24) in New York, at the Metrograph.
