Grand Jury Prize (World Cinema, Documentary)
Nominee
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Last Train Home2009
Every spring, China's cities are plunged into chaos as 130 million migrant workers journey to their home villages for the New Year's holiday. This mass exodus is the world's largest human migration, an epic spectacle that reveals a country tragically caught between its rural past and industrial future. Working over several years in classic verité style, Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Lixin Fan (with the producers of the award-winning hit documentary UP THE YANGTZE) travels with one couple who have embarked on this annual trek for almost two decades. Like so many of China's rural poor, Zhang Changhua and Chen Suqin left behind their two infant children for grueling factory jobs. Their daughter Qin, now a restless and rebellious teenager, both bitterly resents their absence and longs for her own freedom away from school, much to the utter devastation of her parents. Emotionally engaging and starkly beautiful, LAST TRAIN HOME's intimate observation of one fractured family sheds light on the human cost of China's ascendance as an economic superpower.
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What makes this film worth watching?
2 members like this review
A compelling, heartbreaking documentary that follows the lives of the Chinese immigrant workers who make the products we use. There is no editorial commentary, just the cameras following one family. The stresses are so great it is sometimes hard to watch. A very moving film.
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Member Reviews (8)
A compelling, heartbreaking documentary that follows the lives of the Chinese immigrant workers who make the products we use. There is no editorial commentary, just the cameras following one family. The stresses are so great it is sometimes hard to watch. A very moving film.
2 members like this review
A quietly moving, empathetic social biopsy of the working class, migrant Chinese who produce so much of the world's goods.
1 member likes this review
top reviewer
Work 50 weeks a year in a smoggy city at a hellish job, living in a crappy "apartment", with 2 weeks "off" spending all but one of the days traveling in hellhole lines, trains, ferries, buses, roads, trucks, and taxis? Happy new year, not so much.
top reviewer
when you think you have it bad,someone else has it worse, suprising look at the big red machine
top reviewer
very good story. families all over the world are the same working all the time kids not listening to then wont take any advice cause they already it allparents working with no health insuranse and no savings working till they fall over dead while rich people are laughing about it
Truth that remains hidden often is well exposed.
Everyone should see this film. Though it depicts the lives of Chinese migrant workers, it stands well for all those who find their families broken by their struggles to better their lives.
I think my one month with Fandor.com is about to end. I have never received higher entertainment value for the buck than this month with Fandor. I have watched over 30 movies. Every one was a gift. Thank you! I will come back to you but now, inspired I must work.
My Name is Joy, La Vuelta: A Journey Back, and Why Kerala, Grampa?
are films that might have a place at Fandor, I don't know. They can be seen at youtube. Again thank you for a spectacular month. You know the movies I have watched. I was not disappointed ever. I will be back. Paz tom chamberlin