Last Train Home
Film Information:
Year:
2009
Last Train Home
País:
Director:
Color:
Color
Format:
35 mm
Duration:
87 min
Cast:
- INTÉRPRETES: Zhang Changhua, Zhang Qin, Chen Suqin
Production:
- FOTOGRAFÍA: Lixin Fan
- MONTAJE: Lixin Fan, Mary Stephens
- PRODUCCIÓN: Mila Aung-Thwin, Daniel Cross
Contact:
- Contacto / Contact
- Cat and Docs
- Catherine Le Clef
- 18 rue Quincampoix #133
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Synopsis
The words “human anthill” can’t even begin to describe what happens every year in China during the Chunyun –the weeks before and after New Year’s Eve–, when about 150 million people travel all around the country. They go from the prosperous coastal areas to the farming interior (reversing the migration many workers have been doing since the economic reforms of the 70s) and meet with the relatives they left behind when they went looking for work opportunities. After that, they go back; 150 million people, once again, dive into the collapsed Chinese transport system. Lixin Fan chose to narrate that hyperbole from one of its elementary particles: a married couple, the Zhangs, who go on a 100-hour round trip to the rural village they left 16 years ago. Their daughter Qin was a baby then; she’s now a teenager who was raised by her grandmother and feels resentful to her parents, who, ironically, were looking to secure her education and provide a better future than their own. In precarious textile workshops, and train stations cramped up to an unimaginable level, Fan harshly documents the tense intimacy of that family, and through it, the tremendous social transformations China is going through in this new millennium.