Chinese documentary following two migrant worker parents who, along with 130 million others, annually return to their rural home and children for a fleeting holiday after a year working in factories.
“Working over several years in classic verité style, Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Lixin Fan (producer of 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, Changhua and Sugin Zhang left behind their two infant children for grueling factory jobs... Last Train Home’s intimate observation of one fractured family sheds light on the human cost of China’s ascendance as an economic superpower.” (Official Synopsis)
life in China for the not so well-off. Well worth going to
Lixin plays up the atmospheric underclass misery in service of a beautifully shot, heartbreaking vérité narrative about generation gaps and culture clashes.
Last Train Home suggests that the times they are a-changin'. The rulers of China may someday regret that they distributed the works of Marx so generously.
This personal account of one family's struggle with disconnect surely warrants a viewing, but those not already interested in the overarching subject matter will find it just as gratifying at home as in the theatre.
An expert, unobtrusive observer, Fan disappears inside his own film and allows us to get completely inside his subjects' lives.
Tells the story of a family caught, and possibly crushed, between the past and the future--a story that, on its own, is moving, even heartbreaking. Multiplied by 130 million, it becomes a terrifying and sobering panorama of the present.
We've been told the NZ release date for this flick is Thursday, 10th Nov 2011.
Release date: November 10th 2011.
We haven't received times for this movie in this location yet. However these are updated as cinemas announce them, so check back soon. Hopefully the lovely cinemas in your location will choose to play it shortly. ~Ed.
