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Men In Black 3

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Bel Ami

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The Dictator

A disappointing, often repulsive and mean-spirited mess of a film with seemingly only one real criterion on its agenda: to shock and offend.

The Woman In Black

Packed with atmosphere, this old-fashioned but deftly told ghost story delivers ample chills and thrills.

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Last Train Home (Film)

by Emmet O'Cuana | March 15, 2011 16:57 | Edited March 15, 2011 16:58

With its minimalist approach, this is a powerful documentary which deftly explores China’s wider problems through one family.

Lixin Fan's documentary opens with the incredible statement that 130 million migrant workers from the country provinces in China commute home annually for New Year celebrations. It is the single largest migration of people in the world. Last Train Home then focuses on husband Changhua and wife Sugin, who have been commuting in this manner for fifteen years, since shortly after the birth of their first child, a daughter named Qin. Changhua at one point says, "When we are home we don't even know what to say to the kids." They have missed the raising of their own children completely.

 

Desperate for Qin and son Yang to have a more promising future, the parents urge both to study hard and go to university. Throughout the film, the first question Sugin asks of her children is how well they are doing at school and how their grades have improved. When Qin decides to leave home, rejecting her parents' plans for her out of anger over their absence for most of her life, they are devastated.

 

Last Train Home features no narration and little music; the soundtrack only briefly intruding on four occasions. A huge issue in China, the film is effectively told through the story of one fractured family and what has happened to them due to economic pressures. It has all the hallmarks of a particularly affecting and insightful work of ‘realist cinema', except of course this is not fiction.

 

Fan was one half of the film's camera crew, present during much of this family's interactions over the course of two years. While occasionally his subjects do speak in a declarative manner, the camera's presence is mostly unobtrusive, until finally the family turn on one another, prompting Qin to scream at the filmmakers, "This is the real me!"

 

This is powerfully emotional documentary filmmaking, compellingly executed through its minimalist approach.