I Wish I Knew by Jia Zhangke

Film #5 at the BFI London Film Festival 2010 – I Wish I Knew by Jia Zhangke

I Wish I Knew by Jia Zhangke is a collection of memories and experiences about Shanghai… over 18 interviewees recount the role that Shanghai has played in either their own or their family’s lives. From sons of soldiers executed by the Kuomintang, to port labourers to gangsters to award-winning textile workers to actresses to bloggers, Shanghai and this film has it all. With the raw emotional intensity that real people bring to a documentary, the film cuts across the borders of mainland China to Taiwan and even Hong Kong and in doing so paints a telling picture of the politics and history of China. It easily took me back to Class 10 history books in India that almost painted Sun Yat Sen and the KMT as exiled heroes and Chairman Mao as the villain.

At the same time, the documentary does not flow easily and that is a primary failing, I think… each anecdote, each character brings a thread of history and emotion which is beautiful by itself (imagine a textile worker who gets to meet Chairman Mao and getting a chance to visit Vienna, where she recalls streets filled applauding Austrians) but at the same time, deserve a better job of being woven to form something larger. Combining many vignettes about a dynamic city is no doubt a daunting challenge, but is much needed in a 2+ hour film… and when not executed properly, the disjointed pieces detract from the formidable theme and almost become tiresome.

But the stories themselves, from the little boy who wants to beat up the world to Han Han, the blogger who didn’t buy a Jeep because it was too cheap, are truly memorable and evoke memories of a city and era gone by, but preserved in film by Jia Zhangke.

Image from www.filmofilia.com here