Men's Group - Movie

Back in 2009 I wrote on one of the other blogs I was then contributing to about an Australian movie called Men's Group.  
I hadn't been able to see it at that point, although there was a brief trailer available online, but it was getting rave reviews wherever it was shown - which, unfortunately, wasn't in as many places as it should have been.

However, it's now available on DVD, and I caught up with it last night.  In spite of the group hug that they're having in the picture in the poster, this isn't a movie about men getting soft with each other or even communicating very well with each other (I don't think they actually hug at any point in the movie itself).  It's about Paul, a facilitator who offers a small group of men the chance to come together weekly and talk, in his own home.  (His wife and family always spend Tuesday nights with his wife's sister - wisely.)  Five men attend regularly, even though all of them admit at times that they don't quite know why they're there.  A sixth participant comes for one highly emotional evening in the middle of the movie.

The men are: Alex, who doesn't think there's anything wrong with him, and can't see why his son doesn't fall into line; Freddy, who's separated from his wife and little daughter and is desperate for things to be right in his marriage again; Lucas, a dour, good-looking man who barely contributes, but whose private life (which we, the audience, are party to) is aggressive and violent; Moses, a man who wears a beany and a long black beard, both of which enable him to hide to a great extent; and Cecil, the oldest member, who gives away very little and seems okay on the surface.

Of course all of them give away a great deal more than they intend. The audience knows more about them - but not much more - and sees them in a slightly different light to Paul, whose relationship with them is restricted to the Tuesday nights.

There is some resolution in the story - one man manages to make headway in his life - but the rest are still either struggling, or unable to move, or perhaps on the cusp of change when the movie ends.  However, the filmmakers wisely haven't allowed their characters to have easy ways out, and we're left wondering how some of them will fare.

The film is intensely emotional, and will leave viewers - male and female - with many thoughts and responses.  Men definitely need to see it, but women do too - and their reactions will be different.   Christian viewers may want to ask about forgiveness and change in regard to the men in the story, but these guys haven't got to that point yet; the need for some level of self-understanding has to come before they can think of turning their lives around completely.

This is a brilliant movie that deserves a very wide audience, including those who wouldn't normally go to see it.

Couple of footnotes

Forgot to say that after today's rehearsal I was one of the guinea pigs for the make-up artists, who were having a training session. Unfortunately, you might say, because I'm an animal in this play, my make-up isn't going to be straightforward. I came home eventually about three o'clock (the rehearsal had finished at one) after having had my face covered in grey makeup, along with various pinks and whites and blacks. I'd washed off the worst at the theatre, but needed a good soaking to get the rest of it out of my beard.
Can't say the idea of this process is grabbing greatly - but the makeup did look effective when they finally got through with me!

Recorded Woody Allen's Melinda Melinda last night, and watched it this afternoon when I was too tired to do anything else. Talk about inconsequential. It has a bunch of four unnamed characters talking about an incident in which a woman walked uninvited into a dinner party. One writer thinks of it in tragedy terms, the other as a comedy, and we get to see both their versions on and off through the movie. But neither version goes anywhere; the connections between the two stories are random; characters leave husbands and wives with a fair amount of speed; the woman in the comedy version manages to wind up with Will Ferrall (playing Woody Allen, basically) and suddenly the movie stops. We see no resolution to any of the stories, and the ending of the tragic version is cut off as abruptly as the movie itself. Bit of a fizzer, really.

Narnia Productions

I'd forgotten that there's a Narnia Productions site, and have just spent several minutes checking out the photos from the previous productions, and the backstage shots. It's a great collection, and well worth a visit. The various reviews from the media are on there too, for the most part, including the sequence of photos taken when I had my beard shaved off (rather publicly) for The Magician's Nephew.

Changing photo

I've changed the photo over to the side, but I'm wondering if it doesn't make me look more disreputable rather than less. Need a hair cut and beard trim, I think.

Things have been a bit quiet on the blog front this week: it's been fairly busy in other areas, such as rehearsing for the play, so sitting down to type posts hasn't been getting high priority. Plus I've been slightly side-tracked by Facebook, which I apparently joined some time ago but had forgotten about. Anyway, I've added a few friends, mostly rellies and people from church (who seem to be on it in droves) and a couple of my singing friends: Brent Read and Claire Barton. Also came across Nathan Reilly, who used to be in our church, but whom I first got to know when he was involved in the Opera Alive group. He's a great stage performer, sings and dances and is going to be in CATS up in Hamilton sometime soon, playing Rum Tum Tugger.
As I was saying to him, I find CATS an odd piece: no plot, virtually no story, just a host of characters who pop in and out at random, do their bit and then vanish for a while, or become part of the general ensemble. Surprisingly enough it's effective when performed, but you rather wonder why Lloyd Webber didn't look to bring a storyline into it.