> Does that film even make sense for someone growing up within Japanese culture?
Oh yeah! F*ck yeah! This movie was remade into a 1986 Malayalam movie by a really good actor/director pair and I'll bet almost everyone who watched it came away shaken.
Institutionalizing someone who is not crazy is something every culture can identify with. You can also pretty easily draw parallels in any culture to even the supporting cast (Nurse Ratched). Probably because of the stigma associated with mental illness and how institutions across the world took advantage of it.
Even now when I think about the (original) movie ending.. tears. I grew up in India. I don't know what I don't know, but after having lived in the US for over 20 years, I don't think folks missed much in translation. There might be a subtext there with a Native American winning some semblance of a freedom that most other cultures miss.
In the book McMurphy is trying to get admitted into the mental ward to get out of prison — it wasn't really a case of the state institutionalizing him against his will.
I guess I was thinking more that he is the protagonist for challenging the establishment, breaking the rules, questioning authority. That seems like something someone in Japanese society would not enthusiastically cheer on.
> In the book McMurphy is trying to get admitted into the mental ward to get out of prison — it wasn't really a case of the state institutionalizing him against his will.
I know. But he can't get out when he wants to right?
Oh yeah! F*ck yeah! This movie was remade into a 1986 Malayalam movie by a really good actor/director pair and I'll bet almost everyone who watched it came away shaken.
Institutionalizing someone who is not crazy is something every culture can identify with. You can also pretty easily draw parallels in any culture to even the supporting cast (Nurse Ratched). Probably because of the stigma associated with mental illness and how institutions across the world took advantage of it.
Even now when I think about the (original) movie ending.. tears. I grew up in India. I don't know what I don't know, but after having lived in the US for over 20 years, I don't think folks missed much in translation. There might be a subtext there with a Native American winning some semblance of a freedom that most other cultures miss.