Last Train Home

A modern train glides smoothly over a ravine bridge against a framed backdrop of snow-covered peaks and deep valleys.

It is a breathtakingly scenic surprise that sharply contrasts with the passengers crammed into the train, exhausted, heading home for a day or two after a week's wait at the city train station.

Lixin Fan's film of three consecutive New Year's migrations provides startling insight into modern China and the devastation that recent industrialization has wrecked upon a country once steeped in family-centered culture.

A young girl offers prayers for her grandfather. He has raised her and she doesn't really know much at all about her parents.

They have spent her lifetime in Guangzhou's factories making jeans for the world and sending money back home in hopes their children (they also have a younger son) will receive a strong education and rise above the menial factory work.

It is an aching portrait of modern China that should be seen.