28 Up

Director Michael Apted returns to interview this group of people 7 years later. They are 28 now, and things keep changing. We are now further and further away from the social studies aspects of the original idea. These are great stories about real people. The phrase that you can't make this up is really coming true here. There are still questions about school, about money, about class system, but they are almost distractions now. These people are not just about the stereotypes although some do try very hard.

Neil is now fully gone into the wilds and alone. Suzy has finally found happiness and it's obvious now how miserable she was in the first 3 films. Everybody else is changing in their lives in different ways. Charles has dropped out of the series all together. The series is getting more and more fascinating.

The 'Up Series' represents one of the most fascinating and unusual uses of film in cinema history - a documentary life-long chronicle of the lives of 14 people starting at 7 years old, revisiting them every seven years through age 49 (so far).

While I could quibble, wishing for a bit more depth here and there (especially with the women, where there's a bit too much emphasis on love and marriage at the expense of all else), it's really an astounding, moving, frightening and uplifting document. There's no way to watch this remarkable series of films without reflecting deeply on one's own life, and how you have changed (and stayed the same) over your own lifetime.

While Michael Aped deserves every bit of credit he's received for this amazing piece of cultural anthropology, it's important to note this first film, 7 Up,was actually directed by Paul Almond, and Apted was a that point a researcher for the project.

"Give me a child until he is seven, and I will give you the man," goes a Jesuit proverb, which the "Up" documentaries quote. Every seven years, Michael Apted interviews the same Britons to see how they have changed. "28 Up" is the fourth installment of the series--the interviewees are now each 28 years old. The children are now the men, or women. It's not necessary to have seen, or recall, the previous installments of the television series to watch this episode, because the filmmakers intercalate clips from previous episodes with the new scenes. Via film editors Kim Horton and Oral Norrie Ottey, "28 Up" stands well by itself. We're timely shown how the interviewees have changed.

The proverb seems oft to hold true, but there are some surprises. Suzi, for example, was "very cynical" about marriage as a 21-year-old chain-smoker, but at 28 years old is a cheerful wife. Tony, however, said he wanted to be a cabby if he didn't succeed as a jockey--now he is a cabby, and he seems happy.

Besides examining their individual lives, the series also examines the differences among socioeconomic classes in Britain. John, although he didn't participate in the show at 28 years old, made two interesting comments on class issues in previous episodes (viewed again here). He said it "doesn't mean because you sweep the streets you're any less valuable than someone who's running a huge corporation. Not everyone can be at the top. As long as people are happy at what they're doing." John is from the upper classes and attended a private school. He went onto say, "And this is what worries me about these new sort of invidious sort of class attitudes that certain subversive elements are introducing...."

Class issues don't seem to bother most of the cast; most of them seem content with their role in society, as John advocated as the "greatest good that could be." Yet, John is also a bit of a snob. Contrastingly, Bruce is a socialist from the upper classes, and he is now teaching math in a public school.

Women's role in family and society is another issue examined in the film. Jackie, Nick's wife, discussed how she and her husband might balance work with children. Jackie (a different one), Lynn and Sue are the program's three working-class women. They're all married now, and they characterized marriage as a partnership of equals. Jackie has decided not to have children, at least not yet.

Inevitably, some of the interviewees are more interesting than others are. For example, Symon (who had the misfortune of being the last interviewed) was a bit boring. At 21 years old, he was working in a freezer room; he said, "I couldn't stay there for that long--my mind would go dead." He's still working there at 28 years old. It wasn't apparent to me that his mind had died, but perhaps the job has caused him to appear dull in this segment.

Finally, Neil, lanky, serious-minded and depressed, is to me (and many other viewers) the most interesting person of the gang. Neil is now a tramp traveling around Britain. The most memorable sequence of the film is of Neil nodding nervously as he sits by a waterfront, discussing his life and past, hesitating often as he thinks about how to better articulate his thoughts, or to reflect on his thoughts before he is posed another question.

In 28 Up, it seems like the 'the Man' part of the 'Give me a Child' bit that is quoted in every Up movie is starting to take shape, for the men and women. Or, at least, most of them. We see the gradual progression of life start to take shape: careers, over the course of the people's 20's, have been sought out, and they've gotten married and/or had children. Some, in fact, who weren't married before have been changed for the better it would seem by being married (i.e. Jackie), and some aren't living in Britain anymore (one is a physicist living in America with his wife, another has lived in Australia for quite a long time).

The series in this 'episode' film centers around the real progress into adulthood, and how the interviewees now feel about how their lives, loves, careers have progressed. A given topic that comes up is how they think they've changed since being in the first film at seven, and the consensus, a strong one presented, is that a person is at least, potentially, there at the age, but needs to grow (like a seed). It's fascinating too to see how the children in groups have progressed about as expected, or with some relativity. For example the three boys, now adults, sitting in the same line (albeit one of them declined to be interviewed, ironic since he works for the BBC in 1985), one of whom a prissy, upper class citizen, and another not so much, based on hair-length perhaps.

In general 28 Up seems to view the subjects as they would be naturally by this point as adults, and some, like the bricklayer, revealed how they might turn out when let loose in the 'playground' at age seven, some building a house and some, well, not (another fascinating subject like this is the former jockey turned cab driver). And yet a good deal of these subjects, at least for the moment of 28, look set for their life, either with a current wife or kids or a steady income at something they've worked for... which brings us to Neil. He's the one who, at 28, has no current prospects, who was happy as a child but now is disillusioned to the fact that he doesn't have a career or much of a life, but in a way is fine with that (he applied to Oxford, but didn't get in). He's the stark, fascinating contrast that gives 28 Up a great sense of depth. The class system in Britain, or just in how it sets up these kids, is revealed in the highs, mediums and lows of living, and Neil is certainly a low, but not feeling bad about it (at the least, he says, he can eat now, unlike some years before).

I got hooked on these. The first one was only mildly interesting, a sort of necessary toll. Everything of interest in it is repeated later, but it was a solid reference for the editions that followed. The next two editions were absolutely captivating.

There's something about that period before you become an adult, a time when switches could flip, butterflies can affect. The conceit of the series is that the British class system is deterministic. So the game in the first films is in engaging with these people in support. We send wishes into the ether, attempting to reach across space and time. The don't grow up until we see them and when they are restricted, it is because of constraints we allow.

Any failure at this stage, any flaw in character is in part our responsibility. So we experience a blizzard of minor successes and defeats. Each person is a collector of urges, each a measure of a successful or failed society. These two (14 up and 21 up) were engaging films.

But by now, these are genuine adults. What errors in formation that could be influenced by our surrogate parenting have already set. Now they are simply beings. The only mildly engaging of these souls is Neil, a bum on the dole. Everyone else is no more now than someone ordinary that you encounter in life, each on their own path, working on narrow futures beyond our control.

The major difference is that some have some things to claim over the others. Different things, but each presented in comparison.

I wonder if I can stand the investment of what comes next.

Following this, you are following Apted as he grows in skill, insight. What he looks for as signs of maturity. I hope he is up to the task. His other films seem to imply that he is one of the failures, that our urges, wishes, prayers didn't reach him.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.