Last Train Home Review
By David Kempler
Take the Last Train to Guangzhou
Lixin Fan's documentary, "Last Train Home", chronicles what is claimed to be the world's largest annual migration, at least in regards to human beings. Every New Year, approximately 130 million migrant workers trek home to be with their families for a couple of days before heading right back out to their jobs. Rather than focusing on the vast enormity of it all, Fan zooms in on one family's voyage.
At the outset, Fan shows us more people than perhaps you have ever seen on screen, all trying to pile into trains heading to their respective homes. Everyone is desperate to buy tickets, and those lucky enough to acquire them run frantically from place to place in order to acquire a "good" spot on the train. The trains are crowded to the max, but everyone appears to be well-behaved and calm. Whether this is because the camera is on them or it is a cultural thing is unclear.
The Zhangs are a married couple working in the Guangzhou factory on their way home to their village, 1,200 miles away. All of the workers, including the Zhangs work for virtually nothing and yet save 80% of their wages. The formula is quite different among those of you reading this, as one of the workers happily points out. The Zhangs have been repeating this trip for seventeen years, all to support their two children and the grandmother who is raising them.
While the film is magnificent in scope, its most powerful moment is a very personal one: Zhang's daughter, Qin, curses out her father, causing her to be slapped around. Qin then turns to the camera, crying and screaming, and yells that the director wanted it to be real - and that she is being real. It speaks volumes.
By the time it all draws to a close, one can't help but feel sorry for the Zhangs and everyone else forced to live a life with no personal pleasures (at least as we perceive them). It also made me wonder what will happen in China if they do indeed become the leader of the industrial world, as many predict. It's hard to imagine unions operating in that environment. If you want a glimpse inside a world very foreign to the American way of life, you'll be rewarded, but the entertainment meter doesn't generate all that much movement.
