Abstract
The long-form documentary film has a respected tradition grounded in principles of observational methodologies to present social worlds and their actors in the context of social and political narratives. Lixin Fan’s Last Train Home is about the plight of broken families in China caught in the internal migration that leads heads of families to spend large periods of time in the factories of the Pearl River Delta. This article examines Last Train Home and Up the Yangtze as films that return to the principles of observational documentary. They offer documentation of a China in crisis embracing, and embraced by, the global economy. The article questions the relationship of these films to an emergent Chinese Documentary movement. How do these films relate to the emerging context of new and varied documentary production in China? What are the consequences for a nascent media diversity in China in light of these films?
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Global Media Worlds and China |
| Editors | Qing Luo |
| Place of Publication | China |
| Publisher | Communication University of China Press |
| Pages | 7-18 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9787565712616 |
| Publication status | Published - 2015 |
Keywords
- documentary films
- China