I spent this morning waiting for both the cable guy and the mattress delivery guy to show up. I decided I would explore the Itunes film library and watch a movie since I was stuck inside. I came across a documentary entitled “Following Sean.” The trailer grabs because there is 4 yr old sitting couch proclaiming, “I smoke grass!” The documentary begins with a film student’s project on this little boy Sean; about 25 years later he decides to find Sean to see where a 4 yr old smoking weed ends up in life.
However, as is often the case, the documentary entails much more. The movie is really about two separate families and their struggle with three competing forces – the world, work, and family. John (Sean’s father) is the son of a Republican bank owner, who moved to Haight St. in the 60’s and married the daughter of prominent Communist Americans. Ralph, the filmmaker lived below the family and came from liberal Jewish parents from New York. After the first film involving Sean is made, Ralph marries and expatriate from France and moves back to suburban New York where he continues filmmaking and she becomes a college professor. John and his wife split due to conflicts in their open marriage, and she opens a daycare whereas he continues his lifestyle of minimalism. Sean 25 yrs later is an electrician, marries an expatriate from Russia, and attends law school.
I connected with movie because of its apparent examination of dealing with the social problems of melding together the world, work and family. I’m not sure if this was the intent of the movie or just my interpretation of the film due to my own conflicts with the three lately. The film came to the same conclusion as have I – that there is no right answer to this conflict. We’ll take Sean and Ralph for example probably the two “main characters” in the film. Sean grew up with parents where he had no structure, but with grandparents who believed work was what you had to do to put food on the table. And Sean seemed to gravitate toward the views of his grandparents, working full-time, going to school, and raising a family. However, he and his wife separated because they bickered too much and “there wasn’t enough fun.” This was revealed after that in an interview with Sean’s father, John, Sean “wasn’t as free as he used to be.” Ralph never had to go to work a day in his life, instead focusing on his work as filmmaker. As is often the case making your art your career is a blessing and curse – something that Ralph seems conflicted with as well. His wife goes to Paris for three years during the filming of the documentary and they seem to emotionally distant themselves from one another as well. This leads Ralph to remark that are almost strangers who just started dating but with all kinds of preconditions. He also states that although they left Haight St. maybe some of the freeness of the 60s was still with them and that they did have an open marriage where each is entitled to do their own thing. This did not seem fulfilling to either of them as well.
One quote that really made me think, which came early in the film: “The present was mixed – as it often is.”
