The Work

If four days behind the walls of New Fol­som Prison piques your voyeuris­tic inter­est, then please do keep read­ing. The Work fol­lows three men from ​‘the out­side’ as they join an intense group ther­a­py expe­ri­ence with con­victs, many of whom are vio­lent offenders.

Unlike most prisploita­tion titles, though, this vérité gem isn’t con­cerned with the dai­ly toil of life on the inside. Nor does it squeeze for details about the crimes com­mit­ted by each pris­on­er. Rather, this is a judi­cious study of the slow, steady and some­times painful process of reha­bil­i­ta­tion. Can inner heal­ing real­ly occur in the cuffs of incarceration?

Almost whol­ly obser­va­tion­al, The Work is inti­mate, engross­ing and immer­sive – access is seem­ing­ly unfil­tered. While direc­tor Jairus McLeary spent sev­er­al years build­ing rela­tion­ships with men in the pro­gramme, he and co-direc­tor Geth­in Aldous are all but invis­i­ble in the final prod­uct. Instead, the pris­on­ers con­duct ther­a­py ses­sions and stand in for tra­di­tion­al inter­roga­tors. They start off by estab­lish­ing the group norms, then dri­ve con­ver­sa­tions and embrace vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. Every­one bears the col­lec­tive emo­tion­al toil. And they’re aston­ish­ing­ly good at it.

Well, why shouldn’t they be? This film address­es and chal­lenges per­va­sive stereo­types about ​‘hard­ened crim­i­nals’. The con­victs are artic­u­late, both lin­guis­ti­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly. Some attend week­ly group ses­sions and have par­tic­i­pat­ed in this demand­ing work­shop before. They shep­herd new­bies through dis­tress­ing talk of fam­i­ly vio­lence, child­hood trau­ma and racial dis­crim­i­na­tion. When a for­mer mem­ber of the Aryan Broth­er­hood is more relat­able than a teacher’s aid, it’s clear that the work (that is, the emo­tion­al heavy-lift­ing of ther­a­py) works.

But cast­ing judge­ment is not the point of the pro­gramme, nor the film. The direc­tors’ min­i­mal pres­ence cre­ates space for the view­er to move through this micro­cosm of mas­culin­i­ty, where ten­sion is pal­pa­ble and the con­se­quences of every small nuance are shocking.

Direc­tor of pho­tog­ra­phy Arturo San­ta­maria (togeth­er with the elu­sive cam­era team) har­ness­es the raw emo­tion of the room with com­pas­sion and respect, trans­port­ing us to the inti­ma­cy of the shar­ing cir­cle, or into the thick of a sud­den brawl. Two thump­ing heart­beats cap­tured by lapel mics, or a pri­mal scream from the oth­er side of the room, are sud­den indi­ca­tors of the core issue here: repres­sion. There’s still a lot of work to be done in that realm.

The notion of ​‘safe spaces’ is so often cut down. The Work proves just how use­ful such an envi­ron­ment can be, espe­cial­ly for those addict­ed to the poi­so­nous per­for­mance of hyper-mas­culin­i­ty. It shows tru­ly brave men con­fronting gen­der norms that have hith­er­to served as inte­ri­or pris­ons. This some­times makes for uncom­fort­able or upset­ting view­ing, but courage and hope always sit at the fore­front of every scene.

Per­haps the nicest thing about The Work is its sub­tle reminder that suf­fer­ing is rel­a­tive. While the work is a life­long tri­al, this film reminds us that you always have to start somewhere.