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Following Sean
Filmmaker Ralph Arlyck first met Sean while living as a graduate student in Haight Ashbury at the height of the 1960s. The city was awash with the trappings of America’s cultural revolution-the San Francisco State University campus flooded with cops in riot gear, the Haight filled with drifters and idealists, and, on the third floor of Arlyck’s building, a come-one-come-all crashpad apartment. It was from this top floor commune that the precocious 4-year-old Sean would occasionally wander downstairs to visit and talk-and one day Arlyck turned on his camera. Sean’s casual commentary on everything from smoking pot to living with speed freaks was delivered in simple sincerity throughout the soon-to-be famous 15-minute film. This First Child of the notorious decade may have shaken the audience with his simple sentence- “Sure, I smoke pot”-but it was his barefoot impishness which would encapsulate the hope that lay in front of the nation: a promise of infinite possibility.
| Release : | 2006 |
| Rating : | 7.1 |
| Studio : | Timed Exposures, |
| Crew : | Director, Writer, |
| Cast : | |
| Genre : | Documentary |
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Reviews
Perfectly adorable
It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.
The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.
It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film
Back in 1969, Ralph Arlyck made a small film about a neighbor boy named Sean. At the time, the film gained some notoriety and audiences were curious what would one day happen to this boy since he grew up in a Haight-Ashbury home with practically no structure or guidance. At four, he was walking the streets, taking pot and being his own boss.FOLLOWING SEAN is ostensibly a follow-up film in which Arlyck re-establishes contact with Sean and follows him in his adult years. However, Arlyck never really maintains this clear focus--often diverging into interviews and visits with Sean's extended family as well as Arlyck's. Because of this, the film seems, at times, less of a documentary or attempt to show cause and effect and more a long string of home movies strung together. This isn't all bad, as you do really get to know and care about the characters. However, if your goal is to really make a definitive statement on how these 60s "do as you please" morals affected them in later years, this isn't quite so clear--though there is a pattern, to a degree, of failed relationships--though this, unfortunately, would also mirror recent trends on marriage overall. So you are left wondering just how good or bad this odd childhood was long term--and the film kept me wondering. I did enjoy it--I'm just not sure what it all meant in regard to Sean, but it did have a lot to say about the tenuousness of relationships in general.
Beyond the portrait of Sean's family, from his grandparents to his son, this film does such a great job of showing the evolution of generational values--from the Old Left to the New Left to the current generation. It not only shows these transitions from a cultural standpoint, it adds a very important socio-material layer to our understanding of this transformation.Also, I'm normally tired of the documentary trend of including the author/director in the narrative in order to reflect some sort of participatory ethos, but Arlyck's presence really adds depth to the changes mentioned above. Great documentary.
I know we tend to rate most highly those movies we've seen most recently, but I cannot recommend _Following Sean_ too highly. Engaging, funny, brilliant, simultaneously comforting and uncomfortable, and observant, the movie asks us to confront our own lives' narratives; received wisdom about the 1960s and more recent American history; the meaning of adulthood, and a thousand other things. It made me think in a way films rarely can -- the way books more often can -- but couldn't possibly give me a headache. And as for technical elements, the editing and narration are perfect, and the granular texture of the film itself complements that of the families' stories. I actually loved _Following Sean_, and came to IMDb to look for information about whether it will ever be released as a DVD. (The message board says it'll be released as a DVD in Oct. 2006.) I rarely buy movies, but I'll buy this one.
That old line about "If you remember the 60's you weren't there" doesn't apply to people with cameras.This is much more than a documentary about a boy born to hippies in the Haight in the 1960's. It's about the four generations that telescope around him, before and after. It's about family.It's also about the choices that people make, the prices they pay, and the successes that have or don't have. It's also a slice of American life of which we could use a whole lot more. The scene of Ralph's parents' friends (all of them well into old age) sitting around, reminiscing and giggling about being Communists in upstate New York is totally priceless.And the enduring hope of young people who gleefully plunge into marriage and families is what makes the world go around.Most of the newspaper reviews for this film were ho-hum, and one was downright negative. Don't believe them, this film's a keeper.
