Review of Last Train Home (2009) by Chris Z — 03 Nov 2010

This film attempts to be too many things all at once, and succeeds at practically all of them. Fantastic. I actually was not certain this was a documentary going in, and as I was watching it it was one of those films that was simply too dramatic to be documentary, and too real to be fiction.

The film follows one family over several years as the parents, migrant workers in china who move to the city to work in a clothing factory, work to support their children at home cared for by grandma.

These workers, like 130million others, return home only once a year for New Year's to see their family. This is a reality-movie, so it is hard but not depressing. The craft is simple but brilliant.

Staggeringly great editing draws out amazing juxtopositions, and the entire central portion as parents and the oldest daughter struggle to travel back home turns the film into a claustrophobic suspense thriller.

The tension and drama all through this film is relentless, real, and heart-wrenching. This was directed by a producer of the also-excellent "Up The Yangtze." This film is really all about the sacrifices and struggles of family, and the hard choices parents make in their struggles, failures, and successes in raising and supporting their children.

This is a profoundly compelling film. This is an epic masterpiece. Brilliant cinematography and craft that is rivaled in documentary only by 'Iraq in Fragments.' Do not miss.