Separation anxiety (2)

Leave in order to return

According to a report from v.ifeng.com, the idea behind Return Ticket comes from an article Teng read in a newspaper: a group of middle-aged household employees from Anhui wanted to go back home for the Lunar New Year. But as they were not able to buy tickets, they got an old bus themselves and drove back home.

This group's struggle impressed Teng, so he started with a documentary about them.

"Some of the [minor] characters in the film are real migrant women," Teng said in an interview with Broadway Cinema. "At first, they were afraid of the cameras but after seven or eight months, they got used to it and we could shoot whenever we wanted."


Due to the nature of his work, Teng spent years away from home, and Teng found he was having similar feelings as the migrant women. Teng's own pain is expressed through the character Cao Li in Return Ticket: when home is there, Cao does not want to go back, but when she finally returns, home is no longer there.

On the poster of the film there is a Chinese sentence that resonates with many viewers: "To return home, one must first leave."

Another thing that makes Return Ticket able to tug on the heartstrings of many audience members is that it goes beyond the specific issue of travel headaches to a more universal topic of going home. In fact, the "return ticket" is not a bus ticket or a train ticket, but the pull you feel on your heart: if you are willing to go back, nothing can stop you.

Migration is spring's hot topic

Spring migration and migrant workers on the move have provided rich source material to filmmakers in recent years. End products vary from documentaries (Fan Lixin's Last Train Home), comedies (Hong Kong director Yip Wai Man's Lost on Journey) and micro films (musician He Muyang's A Mother's Spring Migration).

The simultaneous movement of millions does not simply reflect the society: it magnifies its social problems like the shortage of transportation resources, the financial gap between different classes and imbalanced development between rural and urban areas. These are all made more evident during that time. And because the movement is related to the Chinese Lunar New Year, the most important festival to the Chinese, there are plenty of aspects a filmmaker has the interest to further develop.

It is also widely accepted that the increasing number of occurrences of Spring Festival migration in films accompanies the whole society's increasing attention on the issue.

"I think the big snow in 2008 stressed the question [of Spring Festival migration]. And it used to be a problem only in Guangzhou, now with the urbanization, the problem occurs in a number of cities," Wu Muqing, associate professor at School of Visual Communication and Media Design, Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, told the Global Times.

Wu added that the traffic accidents and railway scandals these years also cause world attention to focus on Chinese traffic, and therefore the holiday migration, which relates closely to the traffic. "There may also be some filmmakers think it's a good topic and if they do it well they will have world attention with such works," Wu said.

But despite the purpose, a good film can always win applause. After seeing the film, Return Ticket left a strong impression on Wu.

As with many Taiwan filmmakers, Wu said Teng doesn't simply create grand pictures for an easy way to reach the audiences' hearts. Instead, he would rather tell the story through the details.