I watched all ten episodes of the groundbreaking Up series within one week, and I feel forever changed by it.
In 1964, the first film—Seven Up!—premiered. It interviewed fourteen British schoolchildren who were, at the time, seven years old. From then on, the children were revisited every seven years until the age of 70. Michael Apted directed the majority of the films. It is, without a doubt, one of the greatest documentary series of all-time.
I can't explain what it was like to watch the lives of these fourteen individuals unfold. You see the entire arc of a human life, from childhood to adulthood. I became attached to pretty much all of them, but the ones who moved me the most were Neil, Lynn, Paul, Jackie, and Nick.
If anyone is reading this (does anyone read these entries???) and hasn't seen the series, I cannot recommend it enough. Almost all the films are on YouTube. I chose to go into it without any information about the participants. I read no articles about the series because I wanted to watch their lives unfold without knowing what happened to each person. I'm glad I did it that way.
I found the series at the perfect time, when I needed it most. Now that my mother is gone, and I have no parents, no partner, and no children, I've entered a very painful part of my life. I'm not sure how I will survive it, but the series reminded me that life is ever-evolving.
Who I am at 37 is not who I will always be. I don't know if things will get better. We can't promise that to ourselves or to others, can we? But we can say life changes, life is not over as long as we are here.
Shortly after my mother died, one of my friends said to me, life has not forgotten you. It often feels like it has, but I think of my friend's words, and I try to believe that they are true.
If anyone else is reading this and needs some comfort, I will say it to you, too: life has not forgotten you.
If you had frozen these participants at 35, you wouldn't have the whole story. Things happened at a later age that they couldn't have imagined at an earlier one—love, children, career changes, transformation.
That's how life is. It can close, but it can also open. We experience loss, and we also undergo rebirth. We are brought to our knees, and we can also find salvation.
There was something deeply healing and hopeful about watching the series. I wish I were more articulate right now. All I can say is that I'm forever changed by these fourteen individuals.
I will end with the review I wrote for 35 Up on Letterboxd:
Because I recently turned 37, I knew this episode would be one of the most intense for me. Up to this point, I've been much older than them. Now, we are peers.
When I watched them in their teens and 20s, I had an idea of what might happen as they got closer to my age. From now on, I will watch them get older. I will watch them enter territory that I do not yet know.
This is the halfway point of the series and, for many people, the midpoint of life. Time starts to take more from you. Your 30s bring a kind of reckoning with the past and with yourself. You start asking certain questions. What have I become? What am I doing with my life? What is the meaning of all this?
Through the lives of these ordinary individuals, we see so much of the human condition. We see ourselves and our struggles and our longings.We also see how life is never static, and we never remain one thing. Who we are at 21 is not who we are at 35. I am thankful for that. It gives me hope.
I like the idea that there is a Caitlin I don't yet know, a Caitlin who might meet new friends, create a different life, and feel things she never thought she could feel.