Following Sean: A Film Review

I recently wrote this short film review for Greencine.com (click title above for link):

Following Sean: 34 and a half Up

Director Ralph Arlyck's 2005 documentary Following Sean is based on the premise of a somewhat strange, but certainly compelling, reunion--namely, the act of revisiting the main character of your own film from 30 years ago.

Arlyck had lived in the Haight Ashbury District of San Francisco at the height of the hippie revolution in the late 1960's and studied filmmaking at the time. During this period, he shot and edited together a short student film of a charming, barefooted four and a half year-old boy named Sean, the son of wild bohemian parents who lived in the boisterous apartment above him on Cole Street. The original film was apparently well-received in Europe but it became controversial in the U.S. because the seemingly frank young boy at one point says, "I smoke grass," (meaning marijuana) and when pressed further even boasts that he prefers to eat grass rather than smoke it. As Arlyck says in the voice-over of Following Sean, "Sean turned out to be the perfect foil for a decade known as infantile... This little boy I was so fond of, and his whole family, had become a symbol (of what was wrong with America), and it was my fault."

This is the set-up, and what follows is essentially a journey back to Arlyck's own past (including how he met his alluring French expatriate wife) through the guise of seeking out the answer to the question, "Whatever happened to that little barefoot boy from the Haight whose life may have been ruined by his mad hippie parents?" The film goes on to answer that question in somewhat exhaustive detail. Without spoiling it too much, the one hint I'll give is that the adult Sean sums up the early film's negative impact on him, when he quips that it had certainly been devastating for his future political career.

Eventually Arlyck tracks down not only Sean but a whole cast of characters including both of Sean's parents, who went their separate ways long ago. Ultimately, Following Sean provides a worthwhile and effective rumination on the human condition.

The DVD extras include the original black and white short film Sean and a number of deleted scenes.

Link