At the Movies: Men’s Group
How might a couple of filmmakers get raw, spontaneous honesty out of a group of male actors playing reluctant participants in a men’s group? Well, you could have a script, but only tell each actor the parts that relate to him. That way you get improvised, gut-level responses to the plot’s situations as they unfold. You get authentic improvised tension, too.
Men’s Group is an extraordinary piece of film about men, their fathers, their sons and the women they all live with, near or without.
Men’s Group is not so much low-budget as no-budget. Producer John Simpson and director Michael Joy set up a cost-and-profit-sharing co-operative with the cast and crew and proceeded to shoot the film in 14 days on a hand-held camera. Every sequence was shot in one take. The result is that the film looks and feels like a low-budget documentary. Apparently one early audience was outraged that the film-makers had exposed “real” men and their intensely private stories to the public gaze. The film-makers knew then that they were on to a winner.
Well-meaning Paul (Paul Gleeson) facilitates a men’s group in a suburb of Sydney. He is joined by a largely unwilling and mostly inarticulate bunch of blokes who say they are there for reasons that include everything except their own choice or need.
Alex (Grant Dodwell) says he’s having trouble with his ungrateful teenaged son and he needs to find a way to “turn the light on for him”. Lucas (Steve Le Marquand) has been sent by his employers because he’s been “a bit over-aggressive with customers and colleagues”. Cecil (Don Reid) says his doctor has sent him along. Lonely Freddy (Steve Rodgers) has child-access disputes with his ex-wife and he uses his lame stand-up comedy material to keep the world at arm’s length. Moses (Paul Tassone) is a shut-down-but-seething builder whose life is simply squalid. They are squirmingly unpromising material for a series of weekly unburdening meetings that might allow real stories to be told and real truth to be confronted.
Things begin to change when Anthony (William Zappa) comes to a meeting and shares his sad story. The change is not all painless, or even positive, but the film is ultimately uplifting and refreshing. I’ve heard it said that violence is the only way out of the prison of silence inhabited by the inarticulate. The film is unflinching in its depiction of the various kinds of violence that arise.
All the performances are impressive. Apparently the experience of making the film was emotionally exhausting for all concerned, and you can certainly feel that energy. As the sensationally foul-mouthed and self-deceiving Alex, Dodwell is utterly convincing, while Tassone gives Moses just the right mixture of menace and damaged vulnerability. There may be men out there who, like Moses, think that a men’s group is nothing but a “fucking sook-fest”. They should see this film and they should take a mate or their ex-girlfriends.
Neil Wilson
MEN’S GROUP (R16). The Village Theatre will have a special screening of Men’s Group on Wednesday 17 June. It starts early, at 7pm. There will be time for discussion afterwards, which will not be facilitated by anyone; people can just sit and chat about their responses to the movie. Coffee and snacks will be available.
