7 Plus Seven

This is not at all to put down the first entry in the "Up" Series by Michael Apted, Seven Up, but if you were to first go to this film- 7 Plus Seven- you actually would not be missing that much in the story lines of the children profiled. This is because Apted does something very smart in how he structures the material in this segment of the series, when all the children interviewed before when seven are now fourteen. He makes sure that the audience, who may need to be reminded who everyone is (at the time this was made, remember, things weren't re-aired frequently on TV, so many may have forgotten by seven years past), by simply just taking footage from the first segment of the Up Series and putting one interview following the previous one. It's not being lazy and relying on past clips, but a very precise form of counterpoint.

We see this as Apted unfolds the interviews with subjects like Bruce, Jackie, Suzanne, Nick, Charles, Lynn, all of them are here, and we see how specifically they've grown in physical appearance and voice, yes, but also in attitude and outlook. Apted asks similar questions from before, like "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Things like that, or 'what, if anything, do you watch on TV', and then it transitions into deeper, heavier questions that the kids, as when they were seven (far more articulate than many parents would ever give credit for) can at least try to tackle. Love, politics, religion, race, the state of Britain, hippies, nothing is really too far off limits to ask these kids, and we get a full spectrum of something very elemental: who are these people, if only in profile?

Apted is asking specific questions and getting honest answers- sometimes awkward, like when asked about girlfriends and boyfriends, but then again they are fourteen after all, that dastardly age to be- and its all framed about what was said in the past and what's said in the present. Another asset is the style; before it was black and white, looking like a very long newsreel story for movie theaters, and now it's in color, albeit faded over time, and the difference is striking (not to mention the intensity of the camera in some instances, as in 1963 Apted wanted to capture the rambunctious side of seven years olds).

While I'm not sure if 7 Plus Seven ranks as one of the best documentaries ever, and frankly I still hold out hope for any of the others in the series to top it, it does pose some of the best use of juxtaposition in a documentary I've ever come across. It's about growth, perspective, and innocence fading and changing, with more yet to come.

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 the first film, 7 Up,was actually directed by Paul Almond, and Apted was a that point a researcher for the project.

Director Michael Apted was a simple research assistant in the first one. He would be the driving force for the series from now on. The kids are now 14 year olds, and some of them are fully in their awkward teen stage.

When you see Nicholas and Suzy, they are painfully awkward. It's actually hard to watch. It's like torturing little puppies. When Suzy's dog kills the rabbit, it was actually a welcome break from the intrusion. The class separation is still there as the 3 prep boys move on to their upper crust education. And Tony is fully into his jockeying goal. The boys and girls are moving on with their lives.

The production value is better than the first. We are now moving into a TV movie documentary whereas the first one is a black and white TV show. I do wish for better sound quality. Sure we're getting the teenage mumbling, but maybe subtitles would be helpful.

Michael Apted must be congratulated for having (or perhaps stumbling upon) the vision for this study. Begin with 14 seven year olds in England, film them in a few interesting situations, and follow those same kids as they grow up. Every seven years. Because all of our lives transpire at roughly the same rates, we cannot actually observe children growing up. But this filmed approach is the next best thing.

This second film is a bit longer, and now has color in it, but still plays much like a home movie. Now we get to see, side by side, the same children at 7 and at 14. A very difficult age, 14 is. The shy ones are more shy, and the more assertive ones are starting to feel like they understand the world around them. We begin to see the very rough edges of children on the verge of young adulthood.

This and all the others through '42-UP' in 1998 are on the 5-disk DVD set just out. ("49 UP" has been made but is not yet available on DVD.) However, simply seeing the most recent film (42-UP or 49-UP) is pretty good, because each film contains snippets of each of the former ones, allowing us to see how each child developed in 7-year increments.

Just a marvelous study of growing up.

Seven (plus or minus a year) is the age of reason, where children can develop some cognitive capabilities and understand the world from a different point of view than their own. But it's not an automatic process and depending on the environment, the background, the education and the various circumstances of life, the conscience of the world and the ability to think, make a choice or a decision can differ from one child to another, and condition the adult he or she will become (in a positive or negative way).

And "Fourteen" is an interesting age to explore in the sense that it's a real mid-point between childhood and adulthood, it is also the most awkward part of life. Indeed, there's a general consensus that girls are more mature at that age, but it has more to do with puberty and how it inevitably reminds them of their procreative potential and their future roles as mothers (girls are asked about it in the interviews), but are they more confident than boys for all that? Most of the boys still look like kids although some of them are pretty mature for their age, so it's a real mixed bag, an awkward and... as they say- ungrateful age.

But because it's also an important step in one' life, I needed this time to be capable to put names on faces, and as if director Michael Apted anticipated that need, he intelligently juxtaposes images of the children with their teenagers counterpart and mention their names. The best way to start an interim report is to remind us where we stopped before. And I appreciated the way the documentary kept using footage from the 1964 film with Before/after short cuts. I could finally identify the three friends Jackie, Lindsay, Suzan although I can't say who's who for the moment.

Another trio is the posh kids from prestigious prep schools Andrew, John and Charles. They were already talking like grown-ups at seven but I wasn't the bit surprised to see them talk like economic scholars at the age of 14, they're so articulate you might not even pay attention to the content of their answers. Still, none of these kids ever tries to play it cool or edgy, they really take the interviews seriously, to the point I kept on wondering if that was a realistic reflection of British society... upper class, I guess. But the documentary doesn't go for archetypes or predictable scenarios, just serious questions about life and social matters, and from the kids' answers, you start to notice some early hints or patterns.

As a child, Nicholas was asked the question about girls and started stuttering and saying he didn't want to answer that "sort of question", later, he seems to be a painfully awkward boy with the McLovin actor's voice, wearing glasses and always looking down. Despite how thoughtful some answers were, he was the one who worried me the most. Comes in second Suzie, the 'aristocratic' girl, who was playing ballet in the first film and was the epitome of discipline. While there was something very healthy in the other group of girls, all giggling together, on the other hand, there was something depressing in Suzie's loneliness, isolated in that vast Scottish cottage of her father. What kind of good company or fun could she ever have? Did she ever want to have fun?

Another kid was in a similar situation: Tony, but because he was passionate about horses and was dreaming to become a jockey. Speaking of dreams, I was surprised that Bruce gave up his dream to become a missionary, but he has (ironically) a very literate way to explain why he doesn't feel he can reach people by words. It's all to his credit and it shows that one of the inherent nature of life is that it teaches you lessons about what you can and can't do, and as children, we don't know ourselves enough to identify our strengths and flaws. Of course, education and life circumstances play a significant role and the more encouraged they are to develop their own opinion and personalities, the more likely to succeed they will be... in theory.

But it is an age where kids should think by themselves and see the world from different perspectives. They travel a lot, one of them, Paul has moved to Australia, and they all express very progressive and tolerant views especially when they're asked about racism. So, I appreciated that these kids were able to develop a sort of empathy and not to be blinded by the results of their upbringing. I say that because I appreciate Simon, the only one of mixed heritage, and I hope he'll never encounter any mark of racism in the future. Of course, some subjects like religion and politics are more polarizing, although it seems that they all believe in God no matter how poor or rich they are.

But can you imagine such a program today? Apted's approach is extremely respectful of youth but also to the viewers, today's reality TV programs tend to amplify the effects to the point of over-killing. Today, one of these kids would have broken into tears and you'd have heard some violins in the background or a R'n'B hit song. There's no music used in the film, no effects, no attempt to make it more sensational than needed. I expected that it would end by some party (like the previous film) so we can see them interact, but I like the way it ended, awkwardly anticlimactic, like cinematic suspension dots. (Speaking for myself, I remembered when I was 15, a girl in school told me I was talking like an old guy, watching this documentary made me realize there will always be kids who miss the most precious part of their life, their youth. Maybe there's worse than an awkward youth, it's no youth at all).