West Newton Cinema was mostly empty for the matinee of Lixin Fan’s documentary about a family of Chinese migrants, Last Train Home, which is a shame. The film has only taken in around 200 thousand dollars in box office sales. The other shame is that the people behind me, two women, gabbed through the first five minutes. When dirty looks failed, I got up out of my seat and walked back to their aisle and asked them to stop talking. And they did. What followed was what I have been anticipating for three months, since the first preview. Twenty first century China: the country and the city, the elderly and the young, the old way and the new way, splitting off and separating and being tenuously rejoined by millions making exhausting locomotive journeys every New Year. I cried through most of the film, which is about the strongest recommendation that I can make. It reminded me of my family and my sister’s and my own path towards adulthood (obedience, rebellion, leaving home, coming back)… despite that I am an American, summed up perfectly in the film by an unnamed Chinese passenger as someone who makes 2000 a month and spends 2000 a month (as opposed to the Chinese worker, who makes 2000 and saves 1800 for his family.)
The Zhang’s grandma instructs the children to eat more bitter melon because it will prevent pimples, but also because they should taste the bitterness that gives way to sweetness.
You can go home again, at least for now. If only once a year, and you have the will.
The 3rdarm matinee sessions are dream-trains.