“You have not tasted the bitterness of life.”
Director Lixin Fang has observed with his deeply moving portrait of a working class family at the brink of destruction that often times life can presents itself a cruel irony that can sting even the kindest and well meaning of individuals, all of whom strive for something that they’ll likely never be able to grasp. Not prone to manipulating his scenery, director Lixin Fang stands back and seemingly lets a story unfold in the midst of chronicling migrant workers in China where he happens upon a small family of workers the Zhangs, all of whom are comprised of five people who struggle to be close to one another, but are hopelessly stuck in a vicious circle that will grant them misery and sadness no matter how much they may reach for a dream.
Zhang Changhua, and Chen Suqin are a married couple who swarm with over a hundred other migrant workers every year desperately trying to go home for one day to spend with their families on the Chinese New Year. After a frantic panic to save money, and buy tickets that sell out in a matter of seconds, they rush to the train station to catch their train home stuffed in to humid and cramped train carts among other strangers and anxious families just for one day of happiness with their children. Long before they became migrant workers they left their newborn children behind with their grandmother and moved to the city to become migrant workers in hopes of achieving a financially stable life and bringing their children in to a better more lucrative living condition. The sad irony is that Zhang, and Suqin are nothing but strangers to their oldest daughter and young son, but struggle to catch up with their children and impart wisdom in what is a fleeting and speedy day spent with brief celebration before commuting home to live their life once again.
Their fear is losing their children to the doldrums of work and not prospering on a rich education and high paying job, but as their fate unfolds they’ve learned their daughter Qin has quit school and has become a factory worker. What culminates is a conflict of two people seeking to drag their distant daughter out of the pit they’re stuck in, and hopefully save her as her view of the world varies differently from their own. Both people are far away from what their daughter perceives as a life of hard work and toiling all for the sake of having fun, while they work tirelessly for the pursuit of a life they want for their own children that they could never acquire. More tragic is their son is on the path they are and as their age dawns upon them, the task to save one of their family becomes ever more taxing. Fang stands and allows the family to have at one another, exploring how both the parents and their young daughter battle endlessly, and examines how daughter Qin’s own act of quitting school to work with others is something of her ultimate revenge for a life filled with regret, resentment, and pure grief at the death of her grandfather.
“Last Train Home” seeks to convey the distance between the migrant workers and their families they seek better lives for all the while telling the tale of this family at war, opening the door for some shocking moments including a massive riot at the train station, Qin’s utter disregard for the suffering around her confronting every situation with a giggle, and a final confrontation at their grandmother’s house that will leave audiences disgusted. “Last Train Home” is a dignified and gripping portrait of the working class family completely bereft of exploitation and manipulation and it’s one that should be seen by all if only to verify how precious the family unit can be and how easily it can fall to pieces. Almost Steinbeckian in its down to Earth portrayal of the working class and their efforts to earn a better life while keeping their family unit in tact, “Last Train Home” is a startling and absolutely superb masterpiece of a documentary that chronicles the tragic cost of the pursuit for a better life in a world where the economy has laid to waste to everything and everyone in its path.