I’ve been watching Michael Apted’s remarkable documentary series that follows a group of British kids throughout their lives.
Beginning with the thirst-quenching 7 Up in 1964, every seven years another installment in the lives of these UK folks is released. So there’s 14 Up, 21 Up, 28 Up, 35 Up, and now 42 Up. The series begain with fourteen kids, but only eleven are currently co-operating. (Heck, are these the eleven most proud of their lives? Scary thought.)
There are flashbacks in each of the lives to the earlier interviews. They all seemed to have peaked at about 28.
If sad movies cheer you up, because your life is never that bad, this should be a real upper for you.
Amazingly, for the intentionally wide range of classes, ambition, abilities, good luck and bad, all these people seem to be just getting on with it. Lots of divorces, big money troubles, living on the dole, chronic illness, etc. No one is a target for bounty hunters yet, but maybe that’s in the next installment.
Don’t just blame the UK class system or their economy, because the few expats filmed living in the US seem to be making do as well. OK, there is one fabulously successful barrister profiled in the film.
The Amazon reviewer touts their “humanity and strength.” How about “day-to-day dicey struggle” instead?
Apted directed The World is Not Enough, the big-budget James Bond film, so the director is having success. By the way, Apted is 16 years senior to his documentary subjects.
He also directed Coal Miner’s Daughter for which Sissy Spacek won an Oscar for best actress, Continental Divide, and the marvelous Gorky Park based on the Martin Cruz Smith novel.
So the Up series of movies are not only poignant cinema documents of people’s lives over several decades of struggle, but also the warm-up exercises of an accomplished filmmaker.