Forest For The Trees

The Rooster as wake-up call.

The weight of this sad time we must obey: Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.

Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 5

Although gender norms typically confer power and status upon men, the construct of ‘masculinity’ can also make men feel increasingly susceptible to feelings of powerlessness and stigmatisation. From a mental health perspective, gender socialisation may be considered a risk factor in that prescribed norms like self-reliance and stoicism discourage men from seeking emotional support during perceived adversity or crisis.

As The Rooster (Mark Leonard Winter, 2023) empathetically observes, gendered roles put men at risk in two related ways: social norms can negatively impact a man’s ability to reach out or feel seen and they can play a negative role in their sense of wellbeing and self-worth. Systemic empathy gaps illustrate the way masculinity can be a double-edged sword. Specifically, ‘real’ men are not only ill equipped to seek or receive help from others when feeling (say) anxious, angry or depressed, they are invariably judged by men and women alike for being mentally ill (seemingly weak or helpless) in the first place.

Internalisation of certain masculine values or traits – protect, provide and procreate without question or complaint – have thereby predisposed men to gender disproportionate externalising problems. Specifically, men are more likely to commit murder, die by suicide, perpetrate sexual assault and domestic violence and are more prone to substance abuse, gambling addictions and feelings of social isolation and loneliness.

Leonard Winter’s The Rooster is a heartfelt interrogation of two men in crisis. The film has its roots in the writer/director’s own personal struggles with anxiety and depression during a particularly desolate time. Nonetheless, The Rooster’s purview extends beyond self-absorption or introspection: its brief to acknowledge and address the precariousness of ‘masculinity’ per se. The film’s main goals are relatively straigtforward: to create a safe space for men to open up to each other and to explore threatening feelings that typically go unacknowledged or ignored.

Although Leonard Winter’s debut feature might be a modest or insular character study – there are only two characters to speak of and it is primarily set in a single natural location (a forest) – the film is acutely aware of the external social forces that have brought these two men together. Their fraught relationship encapsulates in miniature the characteristics of something much larger or more insidious than these two broken men.

The Rooster announces its preoccupation with toxic masculinity from the outset. The rooster is, of course, a symbol of male virility and fertility, and its no coincidence that ‘cocks’ – or cockerels – are also the origin of the term ‘cocky’. Consequently, The Rooster approaches the question of toxic masculinity from a wounded male perspective. Specifically, the film views masculinity as a toxin because of the potentially harmful ways social prescriptions can subordinate and/or incapacitate the very men they are supposed to empower. The film, however, is not to be mistaken for social critique or indictment. The Rooster is distinguished by empathic attunement, or its willingness to try and understand men struggling to make sense of their own experiences.

The forest setting (alternatively dark and foreboding or sunlit and hopeful) therefore offers more than a picturesque backdrop to a burgeoning friendship. Craig Barden’s evocative cinematography gives the forest a mythical or transcendent quality, and forest imagery becomes the conduit for the two lost souls’ tangled headspace. Given their mental landscape, neither can see the forest for the trees and must learn to understand the larger situation in which they’ve found themselves in.

Nature is a temple in which living pillars

Sometimes give voice to confused words;

Man passes there through forests of symbols

Which look at him with understanding eyes.

Charles Baudelaire, Correspondances

Dave (Phoenix Raei) is a rural policeman struggling with anxiety and depression. The Rooster’s hallucinogenic opening dream sequence immediately alerts us to what the policeman is dealing with: an inability to articulate his own thoughts and feelings. Dan is sitting in a flashing police car in the middle of a vast expanse covered by trees at night, and his own corpse is hanging from a tree behind him. Dan is trying to make sense of a distress call on his police radio, and he seems unaware that it is his unconscious calling to warn him. A naked pregnant woman emerges from the darkness and approaches the police car’s headlights to throw a rooster at him. Although the symbolism is a little on the nose – a woman literally throws Dan’s cock in his face – the disorientating sequence nonetheless manages to capture the depths of his confusion and despair.

From the outset, then, we learn that Dan has fallen into a dark abyss, and intimations about his own demise appear to be tied to the question of his virility. We also quickly learn that Dan is single and living alone, and tries to attend to chickens at home. But the coop’s male chicken clearly rules the roost, and angrily attacks Dan when he approaches to feed them. Dan’s brain injured friend Steve (Rhys Mitchell), however, is the more immediate concern. Steve has changed (or stopped taking) his medication, and is starting to behave inappropriately in public. A conflict of interest (and clouded judgment) prevents the policeman from sectioning his best friend – resulting in Steve wandering off into the forest to kill himself.

Steve’s suicide appears to have exacerbated Dan’s pre-existing guilt and called into question his fitness to serve and protect. Specifically, he had also failed to protect his friend during a fight in adolescence, and there is the suggestion that an impotent Dan became a policeman to expiate guilt when prioritising his own safety or well-being. Dan’s rooster is killed by a fox, adding insult to (moral) injury and bringing his existential crisis to a head. Dan retreats into the forest to drown his sorrows and starts seeing his dead friend again. Steve’s apparition leads him to a cabin in the woods – and it is there that he encounters a volatile hermit (Hugo Weaving) struggling with his own demons.

It's not the most auspicious first encounters. Dan stumbles across the hermit sitting in a sink washing his cock, and the troubled policeman is mistaken for a “pervert…wanking in the dark.” The hermit is instinctively suspicious, belligerent and territorial – Dan is apparently trespassing in “my forest” and shot at the following morning – and only the prospect of self-medication (Dan’s alcohol) can placate him. The angry hermit appears to be the human embodiment of Dan’s rooster, and it becomes increasingly clear that the film’s title also refers to this cocky character.

Their first meeting introduces a shift in the film’s tone and quickly establishes their power dynamic. Up until the introduction of Weaving’s character, The Rooster was characterised by the depressed policeman’s withdrawn, disorientated and flaccid demeanour. The hermit, however, quickly reveals himself to be manic and the character’s unpredictable moods subsequently creates more heightened emotional states and affectively charged physical spaces and interactions.

The Rooster’s emotional atmosphere is suddenly infused with unexpected moments of humour, ‘pressured speech’ (fast, frantic, and urgent talking), violent outbursts and moments of euphoria. Feelings of anxiety, depression, rage, shame and joy thereby intermingle and hang in ‘the air’. Winter’s script goes on to do something very intriguing: it explores manic depression across two very different people, and uses emotional dysregulation (each’s inability to moderate their respective emotional states) to achieve something more emotionally regulated and grounded.

Winters’ also presents the character’s at distinct stages of grief, and the narrative’s emotional arc has them both moving towards the final stage of ‘acceptance’ from different directions. While psychologists are justifiably wary of the five-stage model of grief and loss – grieving typically occurs in cycles and is resistant to stage like progressions – Leonard Winters nonetheless makes it possible to explore these two men’s grief by cycling through different emotions as part of the healing process.

The two closed off men are understandably wary of each other, and can only open up to one another in fits and starts. Neither can understand what either are doing in the middle of nowhere and are equally reluctant to let their guard down. Nonetheless, Dan (correctly) suspects that the hermit might have been the last person to see Steve alive – as evidenced by the fact that his best friend was found half buried in a shallow grave covered in a protective blanket of dirt. Dan, however, is not speaking to this highly suspicious person in the capacity of policeman. He knows that Steve took his own life, and is just seeking closure. If he is to put this painful situation behind him, he must first draw out the man regarding him with equal incredulity and suspicion. The normally taciturn policeman, however, finds the process of establishing trust and rapport with another person very difficult – a situation not helped by the other man’s tendency to go off on seeming tangents or erupt without apparent rhythm or reason.

Although the hermit might have withdrawn from society and chosen to live a solitary existence, he does not appear to be too averse to human companionship. During their tentative interactions, they bond over alcohol, table tennis and improvised dancing. We invariably learn that the hermit has built the cabin in woods without a permit – “are you sure you’re not from the council?” – and that the “work in progress” is a pipe dream (or coping mechanism) to keep him going. He is supposedly in the process of renovating the cabin to accommodate his absent teenage daughter’s need for privacy. When Dan asks what he does for a living, the hermit says “contemplation”. What the obviously troubled man really means is rumination since he cannot “flush the turd in my head” no matter how many times he’s tried. The hermit is trapped within the labyrinth of his own mind, and is trying to solve a “puzzle” that continues to confound him: how the hell did he end up here?

And yet the answer is already screaming (back) at him from the trees providing cover or concealment: this is a self-imposed exile due to the hermit’s inability to accept – or come to terms with – painful memories. Consequently, there is nothing the hermit understands more than the desire to wander off into the forest to die alone. It is quickly established that the hermit stumbled across Steve as he laying dying, and chose not intervene to allow the (other) “poor soul” to die with dignity. The best he could do was keep vigil at a respectful distance while continuing to reckon with himself.

Nonetheless, the hermit’s own coping mechanisms – avoidance and alcohol – have only made things worse for him. There can be no avoiding what he has become: an alcoholic living in isolation, and increasingly prone to ruminations (repeated thoughts about the causes and effects of his emotional distress) disrupting normal functioning. Masculine pride prevents him from even directly acknowledging the original source of distress (sexual violation at a Christian boarding school when he was a little boy), and he is symbolically fixated on its prelude instead (a squashed banana).

The allegedly “proud” father is also struggling to live with the related “shame” and “failure” that has alienated and isolated him. While many people might have assumed that the town’s raging alcoholic couldn’t hold or moderate his liquor, they would have failed to see that he was really (or also) in distress trying to numb his pain with alcohol. The often-absent father’s habitual drinking not only prevented him from being a good husband and provider, it resulted in him (accidently) harming his only child and estranging him from his now missing family. It’s no wonder that another policeman (John Waters) suspects foul play has something to do with their mysterious disappearance many years earlier.

His family’s sudden disappearance just made his hidden shame more public or visible and resulted in a pathological need for invisibility and further concealment. The hermit, then, is grieving a past that he can’t let go of and has taken hold of him. He has lost his core masculine identity and is compensating with a warped sense of masculinity (increased self-reliance, withdrawal, belligerence, drinking, crowing, etc). The maladaptive attempts to make sense of his own suffering, however, only compounds his distress and harms him even further. “I reckon the shame has (even) given me the cancer” that ends up killing him.

Dan, on the other hand, gradually reveals that he has been contending with his own feelings of regret, failure and shame. Dan understands why he originally fell into a deep depression – his partner left him when they were unable to conceive – but he cannot understand what he has been feeling since her departure. Dan is not even aware that he is grieving the loss of a possible future or self and so cannot integrate unarticulated feelings into his normal daily functioning. He knows that it might help “to talk about it…(but) I don’t know how”. The policeman can’t even “catch” his own feelings: they’re just “dark shapes, flashes” that have overcome or blindsided him.

Dan also appears to blame himself for (possibly) shooting blanks and for retreating into himself as his similarly distressed partner was left to fend for herself. The policeman’s attempt to get ahead of his emotions – by avoiding painful feelings, situations and reminders – has therefore only had the reverse effect, requiring him to catch up with (or take hold of) himself. “What happened to my life? I don’t know where I went. I can’t see myself in the future anymore.” Dan is painfully aware that children are supposed to be our legacy, or a way of saying we were also here. “Your daughter, she’ll remember you. But when I’m gone I’ll just be gone…I can’t keep going on like this.”

Although The Rooster does not mistake the two men’s interactions for talk therapy, it does make something increasingly transparent: the simple act of talking can be therapeutic. The two men begin to see each other through one another’s eyes, reframing each’s perspective and lightening their respective loads by sharing concealed (supressed, inarticulate) feelings.

Attempting to put feelings into words – or affect labelling – is a coping strategy particularly prominent amongst women. As research confirms, identifying one’s feelings can be a way of emotionally regulating and tempering painful experiences. Indeed, being able to share – or talk about – identified feelings creates the possibility for mutually supportive relationships that promote general well-being. Significantly, the hermit is already vaguely aware that ‘putting feelings into words’ can affect his emotional state. Given his volatility, though, his ability to understand (or express) these emotions tend to arbitrate between extremes and many of these words (or feelings) are often ‘on repeat’.

Repeating these words has the opposite effect on him: instead of reducing an affect, repetition (or perseverating) merely heightens the corresponding feelings. Nonetheless, we also watch him repeatedly trying to turn an expression of alarm or concern – “oh no!” – on its head. Although the hermit often indicates distress by repeatedly saying ‘oh no!’ out aloud to himself he also tries to counteract – or turn off – this alarm by using the expression in a self-mocking or self-placating way.

If the hermit teaches Dan anything, it’s that its possible to change your feelings – or your relationship to them – with the same words by putting them ‘elsewhere’ (so to speak). It’s just a question of tone or inflection. Consequently, ‘oh no!’ becomes a mutable mantra throughout The Rooster and its meaning transformed: putting feelings into words can also be a way of putting them into perspective.

The turning point in their relationship occurs without the two men communicating with each other. They end up communing with nature and find themselves connected to feelings – and one another – through the forest watching over them. During a remarkable sequence scored by Stefan Gregory, the two men conceal themselves in shrubbery and lie in wait. The hermit excitedly wants to share an experience with Dan, and gives little indication of what they are patiently waiting for: an ode to joy. The Christian Choir Bushwalking Club is doing the speaking for them, creating feelings that go beyond mere words.

Although the hermit has lost his faith – he frequently calls God a “cunt” and urinates on a crucifix to indicate his contempt for the Church that betrayed him – he nonetheless remains open to the possibility of grace. The invisible procession is walking through the forest announcing God’s divine presence in creation, and are spreading the word via their reverence for nature. Exquisite voices blow through the trees and uplift the men hiding beneath. The two men thereby find themselves moved to feel something greater than themselves while bearing witness to the splendour that lifts their spirits to the heavens.

It is a genuinely euphoric experience: the film’s two beautiful ‘compositions’ (visual and auditory) work in harmony to create a spiritual experience on camera. Winter’s uses the forest to tap into the mystical states of consciousness that is arguably the root of all religious experience and remains an integral part of human nature. Specifically, the two alienated men’s communion with nature elicits an oceanic feeling, or a mystical "sensation of 'eternity', a feeling as of something limitless, unbounded", a "feeling of an indissoluble bond, of being one with the external world as a whole." (to quote Romain Rolland).

The scene culminates in an unguarded moment when (literally) riding the wave of emotion back to the cabin: one man cradling against another as both receive nourishment through human contact. Significantly, when the hermit is able to hold onto another person they can both begin to ‘let go’.

The process of ‘letting go’ is, of course, easier said than done. The difficulty is: how is it possible to release oneself from the grip of those feelings that have taken hold of us? There is a reason both men are entangled within their own pain and cannot move on: neither can accept (understand, process) their own feelings and have become ‘fused’ – attached to, identified with – the patterns of thinking holding them back in the first place. Both men have thoughts about what kind of man they’re supposed to be or should have been: their identities are so inextricably bound to masculine norms or traits they’ve become psychologically inflexible and trapped in their own thought processes.

The Rooster’s narrative arc attempts to remedy such a process by defusing feelings that keep going off (repeating) in their faces. The Rooster therefore has the two beseiged men relinquishing – or loosening their attachment to – thoughts and feelings they’ve identified themselves with and repeatedly measuring themselves against. If adherence to masculine norms is the source of their distress, only psychological flexibility – being open to whatever is being felt at a given time and embracing (engaging with, adapting to) the feelings beseiging them – makes it possible to let go and move on.

The film literally culminates in the reading of a poem about acceptance during a siege, and finds courage or grace in accepting things that would have otherwise elicited the fight or flight response (Constantine P. Cavafy’s ‘The God Abandons Anthony’).¹

After the policeman hears the dying man’s ‘confession’, the hermit’s ‘passing’ becomes an occasion for Dan’s rejuvenation. The Rooster had been paving this way forward from the outset. Specifically, images from the famous poem are anticipated earlier in the film – the hermit in the window of his cabin, an invisible procession with exquisite voices – and have already made their presence deeply felt.

The Rooster goes on to invert a traditional symbol of masculinity. The rooster is, of course, traditionally associated with fertility and virility, and The Rooster is not always subtle in reminding us of its symbolic meaning. Nonetheless, the rooster ends up referring to something more hopeful and life affirming: the possibility of being ‘graced with courage’ (to quote Cavafy) when faced with the unacceptable prospect of another day. The film reminds us that roosters are nature’s alarm clocks or wakeup call. ‘Cock-a-doodle-do!’ announces the dawn of a new day so there is no need to remain alarmed. The rooster marks the transition from darkness to daylight: it can indicate a new beginning by offering the possibility of spiritual rebirth and renewal.

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1. C.P. Cavafy , ‘The God Abandons Antony’

https://www.onassis.org/initiatives/cavafy-archive/the-canon/the-god-abandons-antony

When suddenly, at midnight, you hear

an invisible procession going by

with exquisite music, voices,

don’t mourn your luck that’s failing now,

work gone wrong, your plans

all proving deceptive—don’t mourn them uselessly.

As one long prepared, and graced with courage,

say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving.

Above all, don’t fool yourself, don’t say

it was a dream, your ears deceived you:

don’t degrade yourself with empty hopes like these.

As one long prepared, and graced with courage,

as is right for you who proved worthy of this kind of city,

go firmly to the window

and listen with deep emotion, but not

with the whining, the pleas of a coward;

listen—your final delectation—to the voices,

to the exquisite music of that strange procession,

and say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are losing.

(translated by Edmund Keeley/Philip Sherrard)