This is the film documentary of the lives of a dozen English children filmed at 7 years intervals starting at age 7. They are from a wide variety of backgrounds. A few turn out with predictable lives, most do not.
On the plus side, this is the story of people who grow up, deal with life's challenges, and grow into maturity. Some of them are relaxed and open with the documentary, such as the African/English fellow (sorry -- I'm bad with names). Many of them are profoundly concerned with the welfare of others, and became teachers, or philanthropists.
On the dark side, most of these people are clearly annoyed with the project -- tho they have participated in it for years. Also, one must assume the best on the part of the director of these films, for the devil is in the editing. How balanced is it really? And there is also one more point which detracts somewhat from the appeal of this movie: it's about the English, the most guarded, self-efacing and embarrassed people on the face of the earth. The physicist tells a joke about the extrovert engineer who looks at the feet of the *other* person when he's talking, and one wife talks about how her husband was always apologizing to her for nothing, but that just about sums up the English social milieu, typically an uptight people who are embarrassed with life.
Maybe this is why I found the fellow with mental illness to be so refreshing, poignant and profound. He had come to terms with life -- as they all had -- but he was able to conceptualize it and share it.
Watching a film like this inevitably inspires one to compare oneself with the people on screen, or more accurately inspires one to look at one's life a little more closely and how one has handled the ups and downs of life on this planet. In that sense, it's surely a good film.
Unless one is a thoroughly incorrigible voyeur, some parts of this film will be boring and irrelevant, but overall a good experience.
On the plus side, this is the story of people who grow up, deal with life's challenges, and grow into maturity. Some of them are relaxed and open with the documentary, such as the African/English fellow (sorry -- I'm bad with names). Many of them are profoundly concerned with the welfare of others, and became teachers, or philanthropists.
On the dark side, most of these people are clearly annoyed with the project -- tho they have participated in it for years. Also, one must assume the best on the part of the director of these films, for the devil is in the editing. How balanced is it really? And there is also one more point which detracts somewhat from the appeal of this movie: it's about the English, the most guarded, self-efacing and embarrassed people on the face of the earth. The physicist tells a joke about the extrovert engineer who looks at the feet of the *other* person when he's talking, and one wife talks about how her husband was always apologizing to her for nothing, but that just about sums up the English social milieu, typically an uptight people who are embarrassed with life.
Maybe this is why I found the fellow with mental illness to be so refreshing, poignant and profound. He had come to terms with life -- as they all had -- but he was able to conceptualize it and share it.
Watching a film like this inevitably inspires one to compare oneself with the people on screen, or more accurately inspires one to look at one's life a little more closely and how one has handled the ups and downs of life on this planet. In that sense, it's surely a good film.
Unless one is a thoroughly incorrigible voyeur, some parts of this film will be boring and irrelevant, but overall a good experience.
