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Following Sean

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Following Sean (2006)

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Reviews Counted:22

Fresh:19

Rotten:3

Average Rating:7/10

Rated: Not Rated

Runtime: 87 mins

Genre: Education/General Interest

Theatrical Release:Jan 13, 2006 Limited

Synopsis: Filmmaker Ralph Arlyck first met Sean while living as a graduate student in San Francisco's Haight Ashbury neighborhood at the height of the 1960s. The city was awash with the trappings of... Filmmaker Ralph Arlyck first met Sean while living as a graduate student in San Francisco's Haight Ashbury neighborhood 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. Thirty years, three generations, and a lifetime later, Arlyck has returned to San Francisco in search of who the adult Sean might have become. And what he finds, to his surprise, tells him as much about his own east-coast migration as it does about the Californian life he left behind-that the choices we're handed and the choices we make are, very often, quite odd bedfellows. --© Official Site [More]

Director: Ralph Arlyck

Director: Ralph Arlyck

Reviews for Following Sean

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1 - 20 (sorted by fresh rating)
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Arlyck is as pleasant and self-effacing a guide as one could ask for through this meandering but still focused work.

Full Review Source: Film Journal International | comment Comment
05/20/06
Chris Barsanti
Chris Barsanti
Film Journal International

It's a must-see for documentary lovers.

Full Review Source: St. Paul Pioneer Press | comment Comment
03/23/06
Chris Hewitt (St. Paul)
Chris Hewitt (St. Paul)
St. Paul Pioneer Press

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.

Full Review Source: Village Voice | comment Comment
05/02/06
Drew Tillman
Drew Tillman
Village Voice
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Aryck lightly but complicatedly distills our existence into a series of dichotomies (rich/poor, idle/mobile), using his available subjects to tap into the source of what stunts us emotionally and separates us as philosophical beings.

Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | comment Comment
04/21/06
Ed Gonzalez
Ed Gonzalez
Slant Magazine

Character-driven and full of tender contradictions, the film is reminiscent of a Chekhov short story. And as such, it touches on a universality that transcends VW buses and Bush-era politics.

Full Review Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution | comment Comment
03/23/06
Eleanor Ringel Gillespie
Eleanor Ringel Gillespie
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

What emerges from Arlyck's musings is a penetrating cinematic essay on how generations in the last century struggled to take hold of history and reconfigure the shape of daily life.

Full Review Source: Newsday | comment Comment
05/03/06
Gene Seymour
Gene Seymour
Newsday
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Arlyck's new film is an honest and thoughtful examination of the people and events that most influenced his adult life and what the '60s really meant to the bigger picture, viewed with the benefit of hindsight.

Full Review Source: Boston Globe | comment Comment
04/07/06
Janice Page
Janice Page
Boston Globe

Following Sean is an almost shapeless film. But it's clever enough to know that its multiple reflections eventually reveal something profound.

Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | comment Comment
01/13/06
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid

Underlying subtexts of idealism, utopianism, the power of fate, the interconnectivity of all life emerge...taking Arlyck's original rather small quest into much deeper philosophical territory.

Full Review Source: culturevulture.net | comment Comment
01/12/06
Les Wright
Les Wright
culturevulture.net

An uncommonly perceptive look at the counter-culture and the difficulties of preserving a sense of freedom and integrity in American society.

Full Review Source: rec.arts.movies.reviews | comment Comment
03/30/07
Louis Proyect
Louis Proyect
rec.arts.movies.reviews

A fascinating portrait of an American family in 1969 (much of the short film 'Sean' is included) and today, strained by different value systems and yet still bound by love.

Full Review Source: Seattle Times | comment Comment
01/20/06
Moira MacDonald
Moira MacDonald
Seattle Times

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.

comment Comment
05/02/06
Nathan Lee
Nathan Lee
New York Times

Without belaboring his narrative shaping, Arlyck asks big questions about life paths and philosophical drift.

Full Review Source: Groucho Reviews | comment Comment
01/12/06
Peter Canavese
Peter Canavese
Groucho Reviews

While the film is ostensibly a "49 Up" style look at how Sean the child grew into the man, what it really is is a penetrating look at how Arlyck the young man grew into an old one.

Full Review Source: Capital Times (Madison, WI) | comment Comment
04/20/07
Rob Thomas
Rob Thomas
Capital Times (Madison, WI)

As fascinating as it is frustrating, docu raises a raft of nicely unresolved questions about parenting and parentage.

Full Review Source: Variety | comment Comment
01/13/06
Ronnie Scheib
Ronnie Scheib
Variety

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.

Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | comment Comment
01/13/06
Ruthe Stein
Ruthe Stein
San Francisco Chronicle
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

... we may see something of our own journey reflected in [the documentary].

Full Review Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer | comment Comment
01/24/06
Sean Axmaker
Sean Axmaker
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

The people in this film are so genuine, so real and familiar, that the story maintains power even if the form occasionally vexes.

Full Review Source: Oregonian | comment Comment
06/16/06
Shawn Levy
Shawn Levy
Oregonian

Part of the film's charm lies in its evocation of a generational mural that includes old Marxists, flower children and the progeny of red-diaper babies.

Full Review Source: L.A. Weekly | comment Comment
05/18/06
Steven Mikulan
Steven Mikulan
L.A. Weekly

In what has become rather epidemic among U.S. documentary filmmakers, Ralph Arlyck's Following Sean is ultimately more about Ralph Arlyck than its ostensible title subject.

Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com | comment Comment
04/07/07
Christopher Null
Christopher Null
Filmcritic.com
 
 
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