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.

It's funny to see other reviewers talking about the awkwardness of the subjects and the dullness of their lives. I suppose that might be true if you're watching this installment as a stand-alone film, but I just can't see many people doing that, knowing just how long the series actually took and how many other features are out there. This was where Apted took over the project and made it his own, and this is where we first get to see changes in kids. Suzy goes from being precocious to sullen and bratty, Paul evolves from a wise little buddha to a simply meek kind of fellow, and.we get the first glimpse of Neil's change from a sunny, laughing lad into the tortured soul he'll eventually become.

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.

The way I think of films is that every film is first about other films and incidentally about life. In referencing or extending our film experience — and at the same time providing tools for folding that experience into life — movies give us tools FOR life. Or for dreaming, which is much the same.

Here we have the second chapter of a movie made so far over fifty years. It deliberately references the story — a well developed one — of British class society which exists as much in art as in life, perhaps more. That's because the notion of class is enfranchised by the resources and fealty of those not privileged, and they buy into it because it gives them a story worth being a part of. This is a story about that story.

So just in its notion, this series will be important. I am only at the second chapter at this writing and boy am I hooked. It seems that they couldn't have picked more exemplary types if they had tried. The painfully shy farm boy. The three young upper class schoolboys, trying on old costumes. The three low class girls headed toward shopclerking and daft motherhood. The aspiring jockey. The rich, empty girl on her Scottish estate, sitting on the grass while her dog mauls a rabbit. Its all too perfect. And though the seven year stretch between chapters seems a bit long at this point in their lives, 14 is a great age to see the clumsiness with which these kids adopt their roles.

I understand that some of the 14 souls chose to not continue being gawked at in future episodes. I am sure I would opt out, because each of us are so mundanely transparent when viewed this way.

What an experience. The first chapter was dull. This already is engrossing.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

The second film in the "Up" series, "7 Plus Seven" catches those darling seven-year-olds at the awkward, self-conscious age of fourteen, which based on this film is evidently a universal. The film is cut between footage from "Seven Up" and footage from seven years later, which is at first jarring since cuteness quickly becomes smugness, and the like. Although, as predictable of the age, the Q & A approach chosen for the first film often feels like pulling teeth, certain key traits and moods of the children in this one will likely dictate far more about what's to come in future installments than could be conceived from volume one. This is a brilliant series of films that is just getting revved up with 1970's "7 Plus Seven'.