Lixin Fan becomes so closely embedded with his subjects in “Last Train Home” viewers may forget it is a documentary. The Zhang family’s struggles are so intimately portrayed it is as if Fan knew the plot beforehand.
But achieving that was far from easy. Both the technical and personal challenges of bringing a migrant family’s desperate attempt to return home once a year to reconnect with their children were immense.
The logistics of filming the parents, Zhang Chaghua and Chen Suqin, buffeted by the tidal wave of migrant workers trying to board one of the last trains from the city to their home in the countryside, posed one of the biggest obstacles.
Fan said the crew was trapped in the pulsating crowd for three days while Changhua and Suqin attempted to buy tickets, and when the crowd surged forward, one of the cameras was almost swept away. As a result, the film’s scenes at the train station powerfully convey the helplessness of the workers and how committed they are to their families.
When the film begins, Chaghua and Suqin have been working in the city (Guangzhu) for 16 years and can only afford to see their children once a year when the factories close for the Chinese New Year. Fan explains they are part of an annual internal migration that began 30 years ago as the Chinese economy began to take a foothold in the global marketplace and now exceeds 113 million workers.
The core of the film centers on the terrible choice the parents must make between leaving home to support their children financially, or staying to support them emotionally. Neither choice seems viable. As the film shows, the parents’ absence takes a large toll on their daughter Qin.
Fan hopes “Last Train Home” will help to put a human face on the exploitation of migrant workers in China.
The problem, he says, stems from the United States’ and China’s mutual addictions. The U.S., he says, wants ‘cheap stuff’ while China is trying to satiate a need for jobs for its enormous population.
“It is a very complicated dynamic that involves migrant workers, private business owners, the government and international corporations,” he explained.
Ultimately, Fan said he was able to earn the Zhang family’s trust. “I think they want their voices to be heard.” But that trust came with some ethical challenges for the filmmaker. At times he was torn between protecting them during their most vulnerable moments, and being objective.
At one point in the film during a fight with her parents, Qin rebels against being left at home with her grandmother and screams at the camera. Fan left that scene in, but it was a difficult choice.
“Last Train Home” will likely make audiences think twice as they look at the “made in China” labels in their T-shirts. Fan hopes they will be more aware of the conditions under which those garments may have been made.
Remaining screenings of “Last Train Home” are Thursday at 3 p.m. at Holiday Village Cinema IV and Saturday at 4:30 p.m. at Broadway Centre Cinemas in Salt Lake City. For ticket information, visit www.festival.sundance.org/2010/boxoffice.