An unprecedented examination of toxic masculinity, Jairus McLeary’s remarkable documentary chronicles a four-day programme of intensive group therapy for men. But not just any men. The programme sees civilian men enter the intimidating walls of Folsom Prison and engage with prisoners of the maximum-security facility .
McLeary and co-director Gethin Aldous have first-hand experience of the therapeutic retreats as participants, informing the film’s cinema vérité approach. Following a few succinct explanatory titles, the directors plunge into the therapy sessions.
Repeated themes emerge in the therapy; absent or abusive fathers, a paralysing fear of expressing emotion, and toxic ideas of how “real men” act. Even as the men confront these ideas, their expression of emotion remains aggressively gendered. There are animalistic bellows, fist-pounding and physical struggles.
As one of the civilians, a volatile teacher’s assistant, reaches breaking point, his group closes on him. It looks like a fight. However, the men are in fact holding him, letting him safely scream and fight and punch against their collective strength, until his anger is physically exorcised.
These remarkably raw scenes are captured with an immersive, visceral intimacy. Shooting closely over men’s shoulders, Arturo Santamaria’s camera offers the viewer a seat in the circle, while the sound captures the sobbing and screams from the groups offscreen.
In one remarkable moment, a prisoner urges a crying civilian not to kill himself, hugging him hard. A microphone caught between them picks up a pounding heartbeart. It could be the prisoner’s, or the civilian’s, or ours. After all, they all sound the same.