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Film: Last Train Home
Directed by Lixin Fan
China (2009)
Documentary: Social Issues
6 parts/85 mins
In Chinese with English subtitles.
Synopsis:
Changhua ...
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Film: Last Train Home
Directed by Lixin Fan
China (2009)
Documentary: Social Issues
6 parts/85 mins
In Chinese with English subtitles.
Synopsis:
Changhua Zhang and Suqin Chen are a couple from a rural village in China's Sichuan province. Frustrated with their lack of employment opportunities, they traveled to the industrial city of Guangdong and took jobs with a large textile firm, making clothing for export. However, Changhua and Suqin were not able to bring their two children with them, and since then the kids have been raised by their grandparents, with their mother and father staying in touch though occasional telephone calls. The only time they have a chance to see their now-teenage children is during China's annual New Year's celebration; they are among the 130 million Chinese whose work keeps them away from their families and make the trip home during the holiday, resulting in an overcrowded rail system as the trains struggle to keep up with the rush. Filmmaker Lixin Fan follows Changhua and Suqin over the course of several years in the documentary Last Train Home, as the couple makes the long journey home (over a thousand miles) only to find that their family is slowly falling apart -- 16-year-old Qin and her younger brother, Yang, are all but strangers now to their parents, and the youngsters have come to resent their parents, while Qin considers leaving school to move to the city on her own and get a job.
Review:
In one scene in "Last Train Home," a Chinese grandmother offers her grandson a slice of bitter melon. He initially refuses, but she coaxes him. "First taste the bitterness, then the sweetness will come after," she tells him. "And you will know which you like better." The line of dialogue haunts the film, because this is a family who has tasted only bitterness in its life, always looking forward to a sweetness that never follows.
Fifteen years ago, parents Zhang Changhua and Chen Suqin left their home in the rural Szechuan province to take factory jobs in the giant industrial center of Guangzhou. They left behind their two infant children in the care of a grandmother, and sent back their meager paychecks every week to pay for their children's upbringing and education.
The only time they see their children is during the Chinese New Year holiday, when they and over 130 million other workers try to find train tickets home. Director Lixin Fan shows a bustling sea of people waiting outside the train station, sometimes for up to a week, presents and suitcases clutched in their hands, their faces desperate.
It's a sad sight, as shocking a visual metaphor for the rapidly changing Chinese economy. Fan very deftly goes back and forth between these large-scale views of a globalized China to such an intimate look at the lives of Zhang and Chen. The parents basically gave up their roles as parents in order to financially support their children, and that makes the holidays understandably tense.
Lixin captures the messy tragedy of their lives with dignity and intimacy, and there are some scenes, such as a violent confrontation between father and daughter, that carry the sting of reality. But "Last Train Home" also has the insight of great dramatic fiction, tying this family's struggle to their country's larger issues with a delicate but firm thread.
American audiences might recognize some of the issues the family has to face -- rebellious teens, only seeing faraway relatives over the holidays -- but of course here, the stakes are much higher. If a middle-class American teenager does poorly at school, they have options they can pursue to address the problem. If Qin messes up, she gets no second chance, and is probably condemning herself to the same factory existence that her parents chose.
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