The train home: the tears of small people, the bitterness of big times

At the beginning of the documentary, it is located next to the railway station, and the crowd is like a tide. The security guard simply stood on the platform and shouted "Don't squeeze, don't squeeze" with a megaphone, which was already submerged in the crowd and could not be distinguished.

Migrant workers crowded, pushed and screamed in the huge crowd like ants. Suddenly I remembered a sentence from a netizen: "Born to be a man", but there was a trace of helplessness and bitterness in trying to survive in the cracks.

Before and after the Spring Festival twice a year, a large number of migrant workers have become the most frequent and mighty population movement in China.

The documentary "The Train Home" reflects closely related social problems through a small family with a working history of more than ten years.

During the period of Spring Festival travel rush in 2008, affected by the snowstorm, Zhang Changhua's family, like thousands of migrant workers in Qian Qian, was trapped in Guangzhou Railway Station and waited for the train for several days.

In the few days of waiting for the bus, reason and calmness are gradually consumed by anxiety, and anxious to return's happiness is also consumed by the difficulty of freezing for several days without rest.

In a closed crowd space, a person's dissatisfaction will always be amplified for no reason, which will lead to group anger.

In the camera, in the dark crowd, a middle-aged man tries to climb over the railing to find his two daughters. After being stopped by the police, his fatigue and anxiety finally had an outlet. He shouted at the policeman, "You really don't understand. What would you do if it were you? " If you work here today, you will be like me tomorrow. You still go into society, you still have to do things. "

At this time, the camera zoomed in and the police turned away. He is also very helpless, just as a maintenance measure that the law enforcement team has to do.

The protagonist's family in the story is always full of hardships and fatigue on their way back to their hometown.

Just because you worked hard to buy a ticket doesn't mean you can get on the bus smoothly. The train was delayed due to the accident, and the crowded tide of migrant workers became an indispensable hurdle on their way home.

When they arrive in Chongqing municipality, they have to take a bus first, then transfer to a ferry, and after disembarking, they have to walk a long way to reach their gentle hometown.

Forgive me for thinking of a trip to Busan when I saw those crowded scenes, but I have a sense of sight that thousands of zombies are chasing and people are fleeing everywhere. It turns out that the scene of migrant workers squeezing the train is more spectacular than the scene of zombies running in the movie.

In the final analysis, the phenomenon of "migrant workers' tide" that constantly appears in various places is the huge interest contrast of the long-term dual social structure and the inevitable result that the comprehensive development of rural society lags behind that of cities for a long time.

These people are only one tenth of the floating population in cities. They have no ambition and low requirements, but even the most basic guarantees are not available.

"Behind the Spring Festival travel rush boom are many intertwined institutional ills such as migrant workers, left-behind children and household registration."

The main line of the whole documentary is that Zhang Changhua and Chen Suqin go out to work, leaving a pair of children to study in the countryside. As a child left behind since childhood, a rebellious adolescent with boiling blood, Li Qin chose to drop out of school and leave home, and then embarked on the old path of his parents-leaving home to work.

"The family is the smallest social unit. After the door creaks, how people treat people here determines the basic face of a society. "

At first, Chen Suqin called her daughter to ask about her grades and explain why she couldn't buy a ticket. She may be late, so there is no voice from her daughter. This short film also hints at the long-standing contradiction between her daughter Li Qin and her parents.

Then the story slowly developed. When Qin Li burned paper money for her late grandfather, she spoke her mind.

She is very close to her grandfather and her parents are away all the year round. The first thing I say to her every time is to study hard. In the film, parents and family members emphasize the frequency of this kind of study, especially frequently.

I just walked out of the torrent of high school, and I understand Qin Li's feelings very well. It is estimated that she is familiar with this kind of teaching and has great resistance.

Living in the countryside since childhood, the elderly grandmother can't do heavy work. As the eldest daughter, she naturally undertakes most of the housework. Farming, feeding pigs, washing clothes, cooking, everything is good, hardworking and capable.

At first, I felt sorry for the girl. I took on a lot of responsibilities by myself. Later, I watched her go to Guangdong to work without telling her parents, doing assembly line work like her parents, and kept saying that "freedom is happiness." I think people who are full of childish ideas suffer in society, just fall down.

When their family came home from Guangzhou, Qin Li and her parents had a quarrel, which was the climax of the whole movie.

Qin Li was knocked down by her father. After getting up, she turned to the camera and shouted, "Don't you want to see the real me? This is the real me. "

The long-suppressed dissatisfaction and misunderstanding broke out at that moment.

Because of lack of communication, I don't know enough.

Li Qin's childhood was short of care from her parents, and she always cared about the family background where she studied. Looking forward to the seemingly beautiful and free world outside, she has an irresistible resistance to study and family, which is also the status quo of left-behind children in rural areas.

Later, I saw that Qin Li came to a strange city alone. In a brightly lit nightclub, wearing revealing clothes, he danced with his hands and feet wantonly, shaking his hair, and his body constantly rebelled and started to grow. At that moment, I thought, what made Qin Li "free himself" without scruple?

Is it her own rebellion, family background or the whole social environment?

Finally, Zhang Changhua had a talk with his wife. Chen Suqin decided to go back to take care of her younger brother, because her daughter's rebellion brought them too much worry and disappointment, but she was worried that her husband was too tired to work outside.

Life is often like this, and it often puts you in a dilemma. If you want to balance the relationship between the two, if you want to get one thing, you have to give up the other.

Zhang Changhua and his wife went out to work hard to earn money, only to provide a better source of income for their children, but they had to give up the time to accompany their children to grow up. When the two sides spend less time together, they will naturally become more and more alienated, and there will be long-term contradictions in the future.

This is the helplessness of a small family, the most similar misfortune and sorrow of thousands of migrant workers' families in Qian Qian, and the insurmountable class solidification brought by the whole social system.

(1) Authenticity is the life of news documentary photography.

During the three years of filming "The Train Home", Fan Lixin and photographer Sun Shaoping would snap up train tickets with the protagonist's family every Spring Festival, feeling the helplessness brought by the Spring Festival travel rush army.

He traveled back and forth to Guangdong and Sichuan for filming five times. Later, the heroine's daughter went to Shenzhen to work, and they followed him to Shenzhen.

During the period of Spring Festival travel rush in 2008, affected by the snowstorm, the film crew, like millions of migrant workers, was trapped in Guangzhou Railway Station, waiting for the train for about a week. Wrapped in the crowd of migrant workers who desperately got on the bus, they captured the most real shot with the most real sadness.

⑵. Humanistic care is the main theme of documentary photography and the fundamental connotation of photography expression.

Only by fully exposing human nature and giving full play to its true feelings in the face of reality, such as strength, fragility, courage and cowardice, can the importance of documentary photography be reflected.

The return train captured many moments with emotional temperature through snapshots.

Sometimes, what photographers need is to wait. Observe a scene with excellent color or shape, and only one "shadow man" appears in the right place to make the finishing touch for your image. All you need to do is wait for the climax of the image.

"Southern Weekend" once commented: "The style of the film is different from the previous documentaries with long and slow rhythm and full of voiceover. Through the film editing of a large number of materials, it makes the whole story very fast, and many viewers evaluate it as "very good-looking" after watching it. Compared with many movies with similar themes, The Train on the Way Home seems to be more like a movie. "

The lens focuses on the helplessness and bitterness of little people's lives, but it reflects the social contradictions in the great era.