Every year 130 million Chinese migrant factory workers embark on a journey to their home villages for the New Year's holiday, trips that are crushingly crowded, and often long. Director / cinematographer / editor Lixin Fan, maker of the beautiful and haunting documentary "Up the Yangtze," here turns his camera on the faces of this huge annual migration, reportedly the largest on earth. As with his previous work on the changing landscape and human toll of the Three Gorges Dam (once again, the largest on earth), Fan concentrated for several years on a single family to tell the story. Here we have a couple who left their two children more than 10 years ago in the care of a grandmother on their small farm in the hinterland in order to make money in a factory. Their daily life and struggles in a society with no social safety net, and their rebellious now teenage daughter and more studious younger son give us a perspective that is both micro and macro.
As a Canadian Chinese, and as an uncommonly talented cinematographer and story teller, Fan is uniquely equipped to capture this story and present it to us. With China overtaking the U.S. in so many areas, "Last Train Home" provides us with some timely and personal understanding of this emerging superpower.
Not rated. 85 minutes. In Mandarin Chinese with English subtitles. Lixin Fan - Director / Cinematographer / Editor, Mila Aung-Thwin - Producer, Daniel Cross - Producer, Olivier Alary - Composer, Yung Chang - Editor, Mary Stephen - Editor, Marry Stephens - Editor. Distributed in the U.S. by Zeitgeist Films.
No comments:
Post a Comment