Last Train Home is a beautiful and powerful documentary about the migration of poor peasants for work from the countryside to the cities in China and most significantly its social ramifications on the family. It focuses on one family as the parents travel to the city leaving the children in the countryside with their grandmother.
The sequence well talked about where large crowds grow angry and desperate over delays and confusion in the train system as they try to get home for Chinese New Year (the one time of the year they get to see their family) is one of the most compelling sequences I have seen in any documentary. But the center of the films is about the generational divide—parents verses their children—and how this mass migration has a mostly negative effect on it. Yes it gives the parents ability to make some money for their family, but at what cost to the family structure?
The intensity of the divide leads to a major fight between the parents and one of the two children which really sets everything in stone, heartbreakingly so, for that relationship, probably forever. This is a great documentary.
The sequence well talked about where large crowds grow angry and desperate over delays and confusion in the train system as they try to get home for Chinese New Year (the one time of the year they get to see their family) is one of the most compelling sequences I have seen in any documentary. But the center of the films is about the generational divide—parents verses their children—and how this mass migration has a mostly negative effect on it. Yes it gives the parents ability to make some money for their family, but at what cost to the family structure?
The intensity of the divide leads to a major fight between the parents and one of the two children which really sets everything in stone, heartbreakingly so, for that relationship, probably forever. This is a great documentary.