Saturday, August 13, 2011

Last Train Home (2009)

Director: Lixin Fan. 85 min. Canada/China/UK. Documentary.

Each year millions of Chinese workers struggle to get home from distant places in time for New Year, creating the largest human migration of our times. But it's not as simple as that. The absence of parents from home throughout the year leads to an almost complete disconnect between older and younger generations, culminating in a heartbreaking scene where a teenage daughter breaks into a fistfight with her dad, just because he's never had a role in her upbringing (and I think she has a point). Considering the extreme respect Asian cultures have for elders, the message is quite poignant.

PS: This documentary won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, and Ebert named it as one of 2010's top 10 documentaries.

Mo says:

No comments:

Post a Comment