Rail Life Drama: Fan Lixin's Last Train Home
Fan Lixin caught the documentary bug when he worked as a cameraman for CCTV-9. After years of hopping between remote impoverished regions and the lights and comfort of Beijing, he began asking himself unanswerable questions about the wealth gap.
Earlier in his life, he’d watched fellow urbanites show unabashed disdain for migrant workers on a bus. Shocked and saddened by it, Fan schooled himself on the economic, social and political issues undergirding the migrant experience. All this nursed an irresistible impulse: “I thought if I could go out with my camera and dive into a migrant family’s real life, portray their real experiences, maybe people in the city could feel more strongly about the suffering of their fellow countrymen, and realize that we should not look down upon them.”
He decided to follow Zhang Changhua and Chen Suqin, a couple who left their village and family in the early 1990s to work in a factory in Guangzhou.
When Fan met them at their factory in the late summer of 2006, Suqin shared candidly about the moment she decided to leave. The family had trailed behind her, crying, asking her to stay. Her daughter had been only eight months old at the time. Suqin told Fan, “I knew I had to go make money, so I gave my baby to my mom and I hardened my heart and left with my husband.”
Moved by her story, Fan decided to follow this family, a filming process that ended up taking three years.
Last Train Home has received critical acclaim abroad, but Fan thought it beyond his wildest dreams to show it to audiences here. He was pleasantly surprised to receive a screening license from SARFT, enabling its first theatrical showing at BC MOMA this month. Fan calls this a “sneak preview,” as they’re hoping for a broader release early next year.
He has kept in constant touch with the family. “Their daughter is in vocational school studying to be a make-up artist, and their son got into a really good high school in his hometown.” Financially, they still struggle, so Fan hopes a release in China will bring more support for the family – but also for migrant workers in general. He also hopes it awakens in middle-class city dwellers the realization that often the only thing differentiating them from migrant workers is birthplace and luck.
“I think the train is a great metaphor for China. It’s fast-forwarding, but there are classes, sharp contrasts between conditions for the rich and poor. But they all still believe this train is going to take them to where they want to be.”
FAN LIXIN’S PLAYLIST
Companion Songs to Last Train Home
“Freedom” by Joe Hisaishi
“Fugui and Jiazhen” (富贵与家珍) by Zhao Ji Ping
“Playing Love” by Ennio Morricone
“Tianya Genü” (天涯歌女) by Zhou Xuan
“Nocturne in C-sharp Minor” by Frederic Chopin
Hop on the Last Train Home at BC MOMA on Jul 16 & 17.
