The Prisons Men Build For Ourselves

1001 Movies To Watch Before Your Netflix Subscription Dies, Part 28
Jairus McLeary with Gethin Aldous (directors), The Work

Twice a year, a large number of men march, willingly, into New Folsom, one of California's harshest maximum security prisons. They do this to participate in four days’ group therapy with some of America’s most hardened violent criminals. In 2009, filmmaker Jairus McLeary followed three men who participated in this therapy session, allowing outsiders, for the first time, to witness one of the most intense learning experiences available.

This documentary got released in 2017, after nearly a decade of production holdups, to almost no notice at the time. Which is both sad, because people missed the ability to learn from the content, and perplexing. Perhaps editing required consultations with clinical professionals to ensure the therapeutic impact wasn’t lost; that might explain the extensive “special thanks” credits. It might also explain why it’s hard to watch this documentary without tears.

Though the therapy session includes dozens, perhaps hundreds, of inmates and civilians, McLeary focuses on just six. Vegas, Kiki, and Dark Cloud are inmates, all affiliated with gangs on the inside as well as the outside. Their names are almost certainly pseudonyms, adopted perhaps because all three purport having cut gang ties. All three continue atoning for serious crimes, both against the state of California, and against humanity.

Outsiders attend for reasons entirely their own. Brian, young and angry, has problems with authority, bounces from one meaningless job to another, and casually picks fights. His inmate mentors immediately recognize him as a prisoner in the making. Charles, fortyish and pudgy, never knew his inmate father, and fears repeating family sins with his own children. Chris simply hasn’t done much with life, and hopes to understand why.

Other, more popular documentarians might have failed to handle what follows with appropriate dignity. Michael Moore or Morgan Spurlock would’ve inserted themselves into the narrative, or used intrusive voice-over narration to tell audiences how to perceive. Network newscasters might interview their subjects looking directly into the camera, expounding on important take-home themes. Either way, they would’ve told us what to think.

Instead, McLeary withholds authorial judgement upon his subjects, content to let the camera simply observe events unfold. We watch over subjects’ shoulders as they occupy their therapeutic circle, seeing ways to open themselves to honest experiences. This proves difficult for all, especially the inmates, whose all-male environment fosters attitudes of extreme stoicism. The movie never directly comments on toxic masculinity; it never needs to.

Promotional image for The Work

This matters, if for no other reason than that his subjects clearly don’t have firm mental understanding of their own situation. Following one exercise, the facilitator instructs the men to write down their insights about their own unfulfilled desires; the results are mostly trivial bromides. “I don’t want people to tell me what to do,” Brian writes. “I want to be happy,” says Chris. Both miss what really motivates these desires until the eleventh hour.

Rather than traveling inward, the most important moments are actually physical. Near the beginning, Kiki, one of the inmates doing a life bid for murder and armed robbery, struggles to mourn his sister’s death. Surrounded by men, he can’t open up sufficiently, until the facilitator instructs him to stop clenching his jaw. Without this defense emerging from his body, Kiki cannot squelch his emotions any longer; he becomes able to truly mourn.

Similarly, near the end, Chris finally drops his ironic distance and admits his problem. Where others have abusive or absent fathers, Chris’s father simply dismissed and ignored him; he drifts listlessly now, awaiting approval that will never come. (Here I paused the film and left the room.) The men appoint a father figure, then make Chris push through a wall of men’s arms to confront him. Pushing from the chest to reach his “father” unblocks Chris’s impediments.

These men find their mental blocks in their bodies. Not all successfully overcome them; one suspects Dark Cloud will face many more sessions before achieving release, and Brian may still do time eventually. But those willing to confront the physical barriers they’ve learned, almost all from fathers, manage to achieve some level of acceptance. These men’s struggles are just beginning, but they have tools forged for the purpose.

This movie’s all-male environment may seem off-putting to some, but reflects the prison background. It also reflects the patriarchal limitations these men must overcome: being a “real man” is both their goal, and their enemy. After four days’ therapy, they’re perhaps somewhat closer to achieving that goal. This movie doesn’t offer pat solutions, but it does offer goals.