42 Up

I loved the Up series, despite having seen only 35up & 42up.

For the uninitiated, this series was a pet "anthropological" cinematic project undertaken by director Michael Apted. In this series, he would revisit a group of British men and women and make a documentary film about their lives, every 7 years, starting from the age of 7. Of interesting note is the participant's differing social/ class divide; from the upper-middle class suburban homemakers to working class cabbies. (Note: 7up was originally only conceived as a television initiative if I'm not mistaken. But its underlying premise proved so intriguing, guess Apted just had to keep it going and see where it might end up. We are up to "42" now, nice....)

My thoughts...

These films might have shown mere glimpses of those ordinary lives, but I was still in awe of its premise no less. Like the flipping through of a moving photo album, we revisited the lives of these people.

Within a two hour period, we saw these people grow up right before our eyes. We saw their physical and psychological transformation over the years. We saw how they charted their lives and lived it. We shared in their joys and tribulations. Of course, there were harmony, or discordance over those many long years. But this series was contented in just showing us simple truths. It captured vignettes of youth's idealistic beauty and inevitable follies. It revealed life's vaunted fulfillment and crushing regrets. Most importantly, it attempted to shed light on one's happiness barometer; how our pursuit of happiness and attaining contentment is directly corresponded with our expectations in the past, present, and probably beyond.

We may not always tick like clockwork in this tragi-comedic mortal coil. But a rewind is often all it takes to get us back on track. This continuing Up series is thus IMO, a very worthy meditation on the meaning of our very own lives. I so wanna see what happens when those 7 year olds turn 49.