Last Train Home

Canada | 85 minutes | 2009 | Documentary | Sichuanese and Mandarin Chinese | English Subtitles | PG
加拿大 | 85 分钟 | 2009 | 纪录片 | 四川方言和普通话 | 英文字幕 | PG

Chunyun, literally “spring transportation”, is a hectic 40-day period around the Chinese New Year, with hundreds of millions of migrant workers travelling back home for family reunions. This mind-boggling “largest annual human migration on earth” is delicately captured in director FAN Lixin’s Last Train Home. Fan takes a close-up of one single migrant family, the Zhangs. In 1990, Zhang and his wife left their young children to find work in the city, consoled by the hope that their wages would lift their children into a better life. But their dreams were shattered when their daughter, Qin, dropped out of school and became a migrant worker herself.

《归途列车》以“春运”这一众生相的话题为纽带，将镜头聚焦于从四川到广东打工的张昌华与陈素琴一家。十几年来，他们夜以继日地在工厂里做工，仅有春节时可与一双儿女团聚——见面总不免絮叨学习成绩与“不要像我们一样”的期盼。然而让他们心碎的是，女儿张琴毅然退学，前往广东打工……影片拍摄历时三年，从小家视角记录下了三次归途，为庞大的农民工群体绘出细腻侧写，也扑捉到2008年雪灾六十万人滞留广州火车站的震撼场面。本片曾获荷兰阿姆斯特丹国际纪录片电影节最佳纪录长片和两项艾美奖。