Last Train Home (2009)

Last Train Home (2009) is a Chinese documentary dedicated to migrant workers in China. It follows a family working to produce consumer goods for Western consumers that end up destroying the lives of the producers who hardly get paid a dime for their labor. It features heart-wrenching scenes of a father and mother committing themselves to arduous factory work only to see their son and daughter once a year during the Chinese New Year (only reaching them after being herded like cattle on crowded trains traveling between provinces). The entire film captures very well the emotions of the bleak reality of migrant workers' lives. The "low-hanging fruit" of China that has catapulted it to global economic success hardly benefits from these successes.

Although the film is wrought with pain and strife, it comes highly recommended as a fantastic piece of work in film-making and also as a worthwhile look into migrant workers lives in China. I can only imagine that the struggles featured in this film are characteristic of struggles of workers around the world.