A sobbing man is such a rare sight that unless you've attended a funeral recently, you probably haven't seen it for a while.
Revealing feelings is rare among men, according to John L Simpson, an award- winning Australian producer, who believes that despite the number of men's groups springing up in the Western World, "men are terrified about what they will say and how it will be perceived if they do open up".
JOHN SIMPSON: 'Men in movies are always the tough heroes who are climbing mountains. You don't see them gong on an emotional journey.'
Simpson believes that most men will relate to the seven characters in his latest movie, Men's Group, a documentary-style drama that follows a weekly men's support group held in a suburban Australian home.
Simpson so believed in the film that he spent a year of unpaid time working on it. The actors weren't paid upfront either. Financiers were nervous about backing a movie that might only appeal to one gender.
Simpson and co-writer and director Michael Joy have found that women are also moved by the film, particularly older women who have watched men they know struggling to express their emotions.
Already, it has served as a social tool across the Tasman, being shown to inmates in male and female prisons, and as a point of reference for men's groups there. It has also attracted a following in London, Spain, Warsaw and the Netherlands.
Why now?
"Men's stuff is just in its infancy," says Simpson. "We are 100 years behind the women's movement. The suffragettes were the first to change the whole political thing, and then in the 1970s, the whole feminist thing moved women along even further. Men have been cast as controllers of society and that they are in control, when that's not the case."
In Men's Group, the seven characters meet at a counsellor's house, and over the course of weeks, open up and share their fears and desires in front of one another. The men - everyone from a father who is angry that his son is growing up, and yet fails to take responsibility for him, to an elderly widower still mourning his wife's death - discover that they do have something in common: being male.
As trust grows between them, they learn to share and listen to each other, laughing, crying and having it out in front of former strangers. In one poignant scene, Freddy, a comedian rejected by his wife and estranged from his young daughter, vacuum-shrinks the girl's metre-high toy bunny in an act of revenge.
To make the drama seem more authentic, each actor was given his script only on the day of filming, and each scene was done in only one take.
Simpson says that when the film screened at the Rotterdam Film Festival last year, one-third of the 450-strong audience believed it was a documentary, because the characters seemed so real.
"We don't show other characters in these men's stories. It gives viewers a chance to be a fly on the wall. It gives men and women a chance to go on an emotional journey. Sometimes people are crying when they watch it. It brings out very strong emotions and you get people in the audience reflecting, 'That's my dad,' or 'That's my brother,' " he says.
Simpson explains that Australian men commit suicide at four times the rate of women, and in rural Australia, male suicide is double that in urban centres. New Zealand's male youth suicide rate is the second-highest in the OECD and worse than Australia's - 27.6 young men out of every 100,000 take their lives, compared with 17.4 out of every 100,000 in Australia, according to 2005 suicide statistics.
View video at ABC News/AtTheMovies
"You always hear about the guy who took his life who, before it happened, said, 'I'm OK. I'm coping.' To say, 'I'm not coping' is to admit weakness.
"You're not supposed to crack as a guy. We're trying to address the balance. Men in movies are always the tough heroes who are climbing mountains. You don't see them going on an emotional journey."
It is a point backed by the local film distributor, Michael Eldred, of the Inside Section Film Distribution company, who does not expect to get rich out of this film.
"It's hard to say that it was a film I enjoyed. It's quite unlike any film I've seen before, and I've seen a lot. I'm a father and my son lives in Australia. I've got issues no more or no less than other guys, but the concept of guys getting together and airing some of the things that are troubling them - that's worthwhile and it's been happening here and in Australia."
Men's Group has already been shown to local men's groups, and one, the Mankind Project, has run it as a fundraiser in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.
Rex McCann has been running men's support groups around New Zealand for the past two decades, including in Wellington. Head of Essentially Men, he says men often join groups like the one portrayed in the movie after a crisis, such as a relationship breakup. He found the characters in the film "a bit more rough and ready than in our groups", but realistic in the way they struggled to talk about their feelings.
With about 400 attending his personal development workshops a year, McCann says they aim to help men become more available to their families, loved ones and communities.
"We get men from right across the board joining. A lot of them are saying, 'I'm sick of being superficial.' They don't feel safe to talk about what's really going on. Men's groups are a code word for men who are learning to show up and be real with each other."
* Men's Group opens at the Paramount Theatre on April 23.
© 2009 Fairfax New Zealand Limited
April 16, 2009
NEW ZEALAND: Behind the Male Mask
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WELLINGTON, New Zealand / The Dominion Post / Films / April 16, 2009
By Sarah Catherall - The Dominion Post
A sobbing man is such a rare sight that unless you've attended a funeral recently, you probably haven't seen it for a while.
Revealing feelings is rare among men, according to John L Simpson, an award- winning Australian producer, who believes that despite the number of men's groups springing up in the Western World, "men are terrified about what they will say and how it will be perceived if they do open up".
JOHN SIMPSON: 'Men in movies are always the tough heroes who are climbing mountains. You don't see them gong on an emotional journey.'
Simpson believes that most men will relate to the seven characters in his latest movie, Men's Group, a documentary-style drama that follows a weekly men's support group held in a suburban Australian home.
Simpson so believed in the film that he spent a year of unpaid time working on it. The actors weren't paid upfront either. Financiers were nervous about backing a movie that might only appeal to one gender.
Simpson and co-writer and director Michael Joy have found that women are also moved by the film, particularly older women who have watched men they know struggling to express their emotions.
Already, it has served as a social tool across the Tasman, being shown to inmates in male and female prisons, and as a point of reference for men's groups there. It has also attracted a following in London, Spain, Warsaw and the Netherlands.
Why now?
"Men's stuff is just in its infancy," says Simpson. "We are 100 years behind the women's movement. The suffragettes were the first to change the whole political thing, and then in the 1970s, the whole feminist thing moved women along even further. Men have been cast as controllers of society and that they are in control, when that's not the case."
In Men's Group, the seven characters meet at a counsellor's house, and over the course of weeks, open up and share their fears and desires in front of one another. The men - everyone from a father who is angry that his son is growing up, and yet fails to take responsibility for him, to an elderly widower still mourning his wife's death - discover that they do have something in common: being male.
As trust grows between them, they learn to share and listen to each other, laughing, crying and having it out in front of former strangers. In one poignant scene, Freddy, a comedian rejected by his wife and estranged from his young daughter, vacuum-shrinks the girl's metre-high toy bunny in an act of revenge.
To make the drama seem more authentic, each actor was given his script only on the day of filming, and each scene was done in only one take.
Simpson says that when the film screened at the Rotterdam Film Festival last year, one-third of the 450-strong audience believed it was a documentary, because the characters seemed so real.
"We don't show other characters in these men's stories. It gives viewers a chance to be a fly on the wall. It gives men and women a chance to go on an emotional journey. Sometimes people are crying when they watch it. It brings out very strong emotions and you get people in the audience reflecting, 'That's my dad,' or 'That's my brother,' " he says.
Simpson explains that Australian men commit suicide at four times the rate of women, and in rural Australia, male suicide is double that in urban centres. New Zealand's male youth suicide rate is the second-highest in the OECD and worse than Australia's - 27.6 young men out of every 100,000 take their lives, compared with 17.4 out of every 100,000 in Australia, according to 2005 suicide statistics.
View video at ABC News/AtTheMovies
"You always hear about the guy who took his life who, before it happened, said, 'I'm OK. I'm coping.' To say, 'I'm not coping' is to admit weakness.
"You're not supposed to crack as a guy. We're trying to address the balance. Men in movies are always the tough heroes who are climbing mountains. You don't see them going on an emotional journey."
It is a point backed by the local film distributor, Michael Eldred, of the Inside Section Film Distribution company, who does not expect to get rich out of this film.
"It's hard to say that it was a film I enjoyed. It's quite unlike any film I've seen before, and I've seen a lot. I'm a father and my son lives in Australia. I've got issues no more or no less than other guys, but the concept of guys getting together and airing some of the things that are troubling them - that's worthwhile and it's been happening here and in Australia."
Men's Group has already been shown to local men's groups, and one, the Mankind Project, has run it as a fundraiser in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.
Rex McCann has been running men's support groups around New Zealand for the past two decades, including in Wellington. Head of Essentially Men, he says men often join groups like the one portrayed in the movie after a crisis, such as a relationship breakup. He found the characters in the film "a bit more rough and ready than in our groups", but realistic in the way they struggled to talk about their feelings.
With about 400 attending his personal development workshops a year, McCann says they aim to help men become more available to their families, loved ones and communities.
"We get men from right across the board joining. A lot of them are saying, 'I'm sick of being superficial.' They don't feel safe to talk about what's really going on. Men's groups are a code word for men who are learning to show up and be real with each other."
* Men's Group opens at the Paramount Theatre on April 23.
© 2009 Fairfax New Zealand Limited
A sobbing man is such a rare sight that unless you've attended a funeral recently, you probably haven't seen it for a while.
Revealing feelings is rare among men, according to John L Simpson, an award- winning Australian producer, who believes that despite the number of men's groups springing up in the Western World, "men are terrified about what they will say and how it will be perceived if they do open up".
JOHN SIMPSON: 'Men in movies are always the tough heroes who are climbing mountains. You don't see them gong on an emotional journey.'
Simpson believes that most men will relate to the seven characters in his latest movie, Men's Group, a documentary-style drama that follows a weekly men's support group held in a suburban Australian home.
Simpson so believed in the film that he spent a year of unpaid time working on it. The actors weren't paid upfront either. Financiers were nervous about backing a movie that might only appeal to one gender.
Simpson and co-writer and director Michael Joy have found that women are also moved by the film, particularly older women who have watched men they know struggling to express their emotions.
Already, it has served as a social tool across the Tasman, being shown to inmates in male and female prisons, and as a point of reference for men's groups there. It has also attracted a following in London, Spain, Warsaw and the Netherlands.
Why now?
"Men's stuff is just in its infancy," says Simpson. "We are 100 years behind the women's movement. The suffragettes were the first to change the whole political thing, and then in the 1970s, the whole feminist thing moved women along even further. Men have been cast as controllers of society and that they are in control, when that's not the case."
In Men's Group, the seven characters meet at a counsellor's house, and over the course of weeks, open up and share their fears and desires in front of one another. The men - everyone from a father who is angry that his son is growing up, and yet fails to take responsibility for him, to an elderly widower still mourning his wife's death - discover that they do have something in common: being male.
As trust grows between them, they learn to share and listen to each other, laughing, crying and having it out in front of former strangers. In one poignant scene, Freddy, a comedian rejected by his wife and estranged from his young daughter, vacuum-shrinks the girl's metre-high toy bunny in an act of revenge.
To make the drama seem more authentic, each actor was given his script only on the day of filming, and each scene was done in only one take.
Simpson says that when the film screened at the Rotterdam Film Festival last year, one-third of the 450-strong audience believed it was a documentary, because the characters seemed so real.
"We don't show other characters in these men's stories. It gives viewers a chance to be a fly on the wall. It gives men and women a chance to go on an emotional journey. Sometimes people are crying when they watch it. It brings out very strong emotions and you get people in the audience reflecting, 'That's my dad,' or 'That's my brother,' " he says.
Simpson explains that Australian men commit suicide at four times the rate of women, and in rural Australia, male suicide is double that in urban centres. New Zealand's male youth suicide rate is the second-highest in the OECD and worse than Australia's - 27.6 young men out of every 100,000 take their lives, compared with 17.4 out of every 100,000 in Australia, according to 2005 suicide statistics.
View video at ABC News/AtTheMovies
"You always hear about the guy who took his life who, before it happened, said, 'I'm OK. I'm coping.' To say, 'I'm not coping' is to admit weakness.
"You're not supposed to crack as a guy. We're trying to address the balance. Men in movies are always the tough heroes who are climbing mountains. You don't see them going on an emotional journey."
It is a point backed by the local film distributor, Michael Eldred, of the Inside Section Film Distribution company, who does not expect to get rich out of this film.
"It's hard to say that it was a film I enjoyed. It's quite unlike any film I've seen before, and I've seen a lot. I'm a father and my son lives in Australia. I've got issues no more or no less than other guys, but the concept of guys getting together and airing some of the things that are troubling them - that's worthwhile and it's been happening here and in Australia."
Men's Group has already been shown to local men's groups, and one, the Mankind Project, has run it as a fundraiser in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.
Rex McCann has been running men's support groups around New Zealand for the past two decades, including in Wellington. Head of Essentially Men, he says men often join groups like the one portrayed in the movie after a crisis, such as a relationship breakup. He found the characters in the film "a bit more rough and ready than in our groups", but realistic in the way they struggled to talk about their feelings.
With about 400 attending his personal development workshops a year, McCann says they aim to help men become more available to their families, loved ones and communities.
"We get men from right across the board joining. A lot of them are saying, 'I'm sick of being superficial.' They don't feel safe to talk about what's really going on. Men's groups are a code word for men who are learning to show up and be real with each other."
* Men's Group opens at the Paramount Theatre on April 23.
© 2009 Fairfax New Zealand Limited
