I Wish I Knew

Shanghai's past and present flow together in Jia Zhangke's (A Touch of Sin, Mountains May Depart) poetic and poignant I Wish I Knew, a portrait of this fast-changing port city. Restoring censored images and filling in forgotten facts, Jia provides an alternative version of 20th-century China's fraught history as reflected through life in the Yangtze city. He builds his narrative through a series of eighteen interviews with people from all walks of life-politicians' children, ex-soldiers, criminals, and artists (including the masterful Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien)-while returning regularly to the image of his favorite lead actress, Zhao Tao (Ash Is Purest White), wandering through the Shanghai World Expo Park. (The film was commissioned by the World Expo, but is anything but a piece of straightforward civic boosterism.) I Wish I Knew is a richly textured tapestry full of provocative juxtapositions.