The Work

Emotionally draining. By just filming these inmates and visitors they built their own narrative that just needed to be edited together. The end result is predictable but that's because it's therapy. It doesn't subtract from the experience. Convicts aren't black and white and the movie shows that. There's a scene where a character admits to a certain thing being hokey at first, but he let himself succumb to it and he found satisfaction that he craved. That is this movie in a nutshell.

Bunch of guys get put in a room and 'perform' emotions having only seen them on TED talks, Jerry Springer and Christian Revivals. I've never felt so British. [df]

argues that society dehumanises its men by having them bury their pain and vulnerability beneath layers of aggression, judgment, irony. create a more supportive environment and that pain geysers with demonic ferocity, leaving a (seemingly) more harmonious individual. a racing heartbeat is audible during an intense, muffled embrace, such is the intimacy with which this exorcism is recorded. it's work indeed, each victory small and hard-earned; the kind of tough, demonstrative doc the left needs.

I really liked the noises that one guy made at the beginning. The rest is about whether you want to empathize with these men or not. I mostly just liked those noises.

Powerful.

The Work subverts our expectations about inmates. The ones we see here are all highly caring and sensitive individuals. They're damaged too, in some cases perhaps irreparably so, but they're all open about their feelings, they all cry, and they all listen when the others are sharing their stories. And this radical openness, combined with the bizarre subversion of expectations, makes for a truly heart-wrenching and heart-warming experience.

I N T E N S E

Simultaneously powerful and deeply uncomfortable to watch, The Work offers a very interesting insight into a process I had never heard of before. It's sometimes hard to tell whether the emotions on display are genuine or performative, but does it matter if it can lead to meaningful positive change?

It stinks!!!! Some of the most absurd shit I've ever seen. This film in a nutshell: most males are really fucking foolish, which mostly explains why they're either in prison or on their way (granted the criminal justice system is beyond draconian and unfair, but that's a separate issue). There are way too many people in this film, none of them very likable or interesting. Worst of all, it's terribly boring.

In the film's portrayal of the work, we see both the prisoners and the civilians humanized, as empathy develops among the men in the group. And it is in and through this process of knowing and being known that a glimmer of hope awakens. Hope that we might resist easy narratives about prisoners and civilians. Hope that life might flourish in dark places. And hope that we might truly see someone outside ourselves, and that in seeing, we will understand better what love truly means.