Last Train Home

New York's Museum of Modern Art will screen Fan Lixin's Last Train Home.

2009. Canada/China/Great Britain. Directed by Lixin Fan. Each year the largest migration of people in human history happens over New Year’s in China, when city workers leave en masse for their hometowns in the countryside, often traveling days by train. For the first half of this remarkable documentary, you’ll wonder how the filmmaker even shot it. But as that wonder subsides, an absorbing drama develops—one that plays out among families all over China yet is universally intense, powerful, and heartbreaking. With his 35mm camera, Lixin Fan follows one couple (out of one hundred and thirty million travelers!): the Zhangs, who are making the long and crowded journey to their rural village. 16 years ago, they left their now-teenage rebellious daughter with her grandparents—and the welcome is not a happy one. “A deeply moving look at an unavoidably fractured family…. Don’t miss it” (Time Out New York). Print courtesy of Zeitgeist Films. 85 min.