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Plot Summary
What happens to a 4-year-old kid who grew up smoking pot and running barefoot on the wild streets of 1960s San Francisco? In Following Sean, a magical blend of deeply intriguing personal narrative and street-level investigation, filmmaker Ralph Arlyck tracks down Sean--the boy who had been the subject of his controversy-sparking 1969 documentary--to find out what he's like 30 years later. As the offspring of Communist grandparents and free-wheeling Haight-Ashbury parents, the smart and appealing grown man whom Arlyck finds uncorks a fascinating rumination on the unpredictability of life. The film captures subtle, profound scenes of Sean's beautiful Russian wife, his aging but still 60s-inspired father, his feisty Lincoln Brigade grandmother, and weaves these stories into the filmmaker's reflections on his own 60s encounters and his current New York life. In visiting multiple family generations--with their radically different ideas about work, responsibility, and freedom--Following Sean movingly probes the big questions with which we all grapple.
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Rotten Tomatoes Movie Reviews
TOMATOMETER
86%- Reviews Counted: 22
- Fresh: 19
- Rotten: 3
- Average Rating: 7.0/10
Top Critics' Reviews
Fresh: Ralph Arlyck's ruminative essay film picks up the trail of Sean Farrell, the former child of San Francisco hippies and the subject of his 1969 short film Sean.
Fresh: As fascinating as it is frustrating, docu raises a raft of nicely unresolved questions about parenting and parentage.
Fresh: Arlyck's compulsion is to our great fortune. Patient and elegant, his film is a quietly devastating meditation on family, work, and the unrelenting passage of time.
Fresh: At its exhilarating best, Following Sean is reminiscent of the lauded British documentaries that began with 7 Up and continued to follow a cross-section of 7-year-olds into adulthood to see how they turned out.
Customer Reviews
mixed feelings
the footage of this film is beautiful, both the past footage and the present. however, the narrator- director ralph arlyck is overbearing and too controlling of the material. it's called "following sean" but it's more like, "what ralph thinks about his experience living in haight-ashbury," i found this annoying and distracting. maybe it's worth watching on mute?
the epitome of documentary excellence
This is exactly what great documentary movie-making is all about. The camera follows the life of a child into fatherhood, perfectly illustrating the influence that the past has on the present. The idea of class is examined by documenting how, in one family at least, a communist work ethic fostered hippy counterculture which led to capitalistic pragmatism-- and is done so in such a candid way that it is left to the viewer to decide who-if anyone- is the hero.
In a way, we are all following 'Sean'
i think this is one of the best movies/documentaries i've seen in my life. the cinematography was beautiful and the interviews were interesting. ralph was about the same age i am right now when he journeyed out to San Fran. i really identified with the feeling of wanting to get away and discover the "utopia" that supposedly exists in life. wanting to know what your place is in life and not having a clue. confusing trends and egoists with profound epiphanies and prophets. how can you live ideally without hurting others around you? is it possible to have it all? the free route to utopia or the fulfilling family life. can you have both? or is that impossible? it's like Ralph indirectly answered that mysterious question on life that all young adults are trying to figure out. even with this sobering warning... i don't want to believe it. even though i know it's probably true, i will still probably go on through life with unrealistic expectations only to discover the same thing that ralph has uncovered.
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