Seven Up!

"Seven Up!" is the forty minute documentary from 1964 that stands as a prologue for the most forward thinking documentary series of all-time. The film brings together a group of surprisingly articulate seven-year-olds from a variety of backgrounds in England. Through a number of questions posed to each of the children, the audience gets the opportunity to get to know the world through these children's eyes, and often presumably through the parent's eyes and therefore only quoted through these children. Personalities more than perspectives ring through the strongest in this first film, and the glimpse at the education system circa 1964 is intriguing. Unfortunately, as "characters" that will ultimately be seen for another forty years to come, the thick accents of some of them make for a rough start. All in all this is important cinema regardless.

Michael Apted must be congratulated for having (or perhaps stumbling upon) the vision for this study. Take 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 first film is rather short, and in black and white plays about like an amateur home movie. We still get to see and hear these children, their opinions, their likes and dislikes, their ambitions. And, while it is interesting, you can get the same thing at any elementary school playground. What is really interesting, and groundbreaking, is the following these children as they grow up.

For that, one must see the next installments. The best way, for the uninitiated, is the 5-disk DVD set just out, which has all 6 films up through "42 UP" in 1998. ("49 UP" has been made but is not yet available on DVD.) However, simply seeing the most recent film 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.

And that's how the astonishingly thought-provoking and five-decade spanning "Up" documentaries series started, a TV odyssey following the lives of a dozen of British boys and girls with one episode every seven years, the most recent one was "56 Up" and it was released in 2012 and always directed by Michael Apted (with the exception of the first episode from 1964). What a concept!

Indeed, it's not much about these boys and girls that it is about time and life, the real protagonists, heroic, neutral or villainous depending on the circumstances or each life's narrative. But don't pay too much attention to my praises, I've only seen the first episode so far, yet I find the concept extraordinary and riveting on an emotional level. And for that, I'm glad I bumped into that "Siskel& Ebert" show that covered the "35 Up" episode of 1991 which made me immediately think, "wait? Such a documentary existed and I never heard about it?" As far as I was concerned, the groundbreaking creation on that subject was Richard Linklater's "Boyhood", you know "12 years in the making" was I fooled? That this series is so unknown is beyond me.

So, I didn't hesitate one second and started my journey with the documentary and now, I've just finished the 1964 episode. I can't say I remembered all the names but I identified the "archetypes"! a lonely child from an isolated village, a little tough one who likes fighting and jumping all around, three kids from the upper class who certainly talk better than many adults today, one girl who practice ballet and is quite disciplined, other girls who are more playful etc. But I wasn't exactly taking notes, I just let the flow of images operate and I'll leave that up for the next chapters to put the right names on the right faces. It's got to be a slow process and we have plenty of time (five decades is quite a lot, isn't it?)

Now, watching the film, I noticed how not so different kids have always behaved, they are from my father's generation (he was 9 in 1964) but listen to them talking, listen to the boys whining about girls constantly screaming, or girls about boys immaturely fighting, listen to them talking about rich people or the lack of education; the vocabulary might change from one generation to another, or place to place, but the core of childhood is there. Childhood is defined in very simple terms, there's no room for complexity, you fight to express disagreement, you play to have fun, you work because you have to, you sleep at specific times, you respect the authority or you don't, but each department of life doesn't leave you with many choices. Yet, there's no doubt that childhood is perhaps the most crucial part of one's life, the one that hits it or breaks it. Some would say youth but teenage behavior is also forged by childhood memories (I expect the next chapter to cover that).

So you better not ruin your childhood, and the maxim about "men at seven" is true. It has been demonstrated by psychologists that after six or seven, you can't change the core personality of your kid, Daniel Goldman's "Emotional Intelligence" dedicates a whole chapter for fear and shyness, explaining that you can cure a child from his insecurities before the age of six. And speaking from my own experience, I can say my personality started at seven, I started reading comic books, playing games, drawing much better than my friends, being aroused by the artistic and intellectual stuff, it was in 1989, the year where I also started wearing glasses. At six, I was painfully shy but I could triumph over it, but at seven, I started to behave like I would usually do. Some parts were accidental; others under one's influence. See, my mother was a teacher in my school so the day I wanted to have fun with boys and pick on girls, my teacher took me and said that she would tell my mother if I did that again. I feared the authority, I couldn't help it. I became a "good boy" (sigh).

But I'm not saying I enjoyed the film because it echoed my own memories, but because it plays like the perfect set-up to a series of discoveries, some you know to be happy and some sad. The film shows kids from rich or poor neighborhoods, public or private school, boys', girls' or mixed schools, cities or farms, different backgrounds, different personalities and different prospects. One wants to be a missionary to civilize Africa, some know they will leave school at the age of 15, some girls wants only two children, a kid doesn't want any. I didn't know how to feel because they were so young, I was like "why are you closing so many doors, life is so full of opportunities" but maybe it is not, maybe it's true that the die are cast from the start and it's only out of a defensive mechanism that we try to set ourselves goals, and the more definite vision a kid has about the future, the happier he or she will be. I don't know how true it is, I just expect the next episodes to come with a load of surprises, to prove me wrong or tell me something I didn't know... and I naturally wish them the best.

(On a side note, the film was made in 1964 at the peak of the Beatle-mania, and I can't resist quoting John Lennon: "Life is what happens when you make plans", these kids talk a lot about life and future, but they'll soon discover that life is a series of random stuff happening for better or worse, they're called circumstances, they're too young to realize it. At seven, I didn't either. At least, the rules are the same for everybody.)

The guiding principal is the quote "Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man." The filmmakers hope to follow these kids to see a glimpse of England in the year 2000. They follow a group of kids from varied background, and ask some probing questions.

I think most of the questions are over their head. While it's cute to ask these kids about girlfriends and love, the answers are basically meaningless. There's some interesting takes on fighting, the class system and blacks. We get limited information about their family life. Every once in awhile, they answer a question by giving a glimpse into their real lives. We need better answers by adults rather than answers from 7 year olds.

In the end, this is just setting up the rest of the series. The filmmakers get a lot of quotes that will be replay in the films to come. It's a baseline. At this point, we're just having a bit of fun watching cute kids talking without comprehension.

This is the first of an incredible series. Looking back, there are a lot of questions that the filmmakers didn't ask. If the film is taken as a stand alone, it is just a high class version of Kids say the Darndest the Things. But it is a good setup and we have to start somewhere. For that I'll give it a 7/10. If I have one minor change, they need to put the kids' names on the screen. It would make it easier to watch.

I first saw this about five years ago, and I couldn't wait to see the 7+7, 14, 21, 28 and 35, and am eagerly awaiting 42 up. It gets you in, it will make you want to know how these kids will turn out. I'm a lucky one, who didn't have to wait seven years for each of these episodes to come out.

If you have any interest in human behaviour, whether it be in kids or adults; if you wonder if what you thought you would be at seven, or fourteen is actually what you turn out to be; then you should watch this, and the rest of the series.