Milos Forman
Qualcuno Volò Sul Nido Del Cuculo

Jarring. That's how I would describe this film in one word. Not because more elegant terms like "mind-blowing," "impactful," etc., aren't suitable, but because I believe it contains a connotation more appropriate for a film that really made me bounce continuously from one side to the other in my considerations about it. I'm referring especially to the significance of the characters: from the start to the end of the film, I couldn't figure out if I was more on the side of the patients or the doctors, assuming these two factions were indeed so distinctly separate. Not to mention the protagonist, the true emblem of this fact, whom I would call schizophrenic only for the fact of continuously alternating moments of pure delirium with acts of total lucidity and at times even educational for his fellow inmates.

But let's take a step back:
Someone Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
(a title that lends itself to at least three different interpretations, starting often from the assumption that coockoo in English can also indicate a mentally disturbed person) is a 1975 film by Milos Forman, based on the novel of the same name by Ken Kesey, based on the author's direct experience in asylums. It's fair to expect a film of total and obvious destruction and denunciation of the methods then in use within those psychiatric hospitals, but at least for a certain period of the film, the thing remains very vague. Let me explain: the protagonist Mac McMurphy, masterfully portrayed by Jack Nicholson, is a man who goes from a penitentiary to an asylum, since there is suspicion that he is simulating his mental disorders just to avoid work. As mentioned earlier, he will be the symbol of the schizophrenia of the entire film, as he occasionally embodies the voice of reason towards his companions, actually affected by illnesses, and sometimes, even being considered sane by the doctors, he will exhibit absolutely insane behaviors. Until the end of the film, I was not able to clearly determine the protagonist's real mental conditions, and I confess I'm not sure even now.

Like McMurphy, the asylum staff also kept changing faces, but I got a much clearer idea of them by the end of the film compared to the protagonist. At times, the humanity of the people involved in this occupation is quite evident and appreciable, at others it vanishes completely. In some cases, the severe and uncompromising behavior seems unjustified, in others necessary. However, the film certainly highlights some moments where the failure of science appears evident, the perversion of medicine, the refusal to change (in one scene, in particular, it's apparent how the opportunities for change offered to patients are only formal) and the futility of certain treatments, ultimately painting a picture that is not positive indeed of the psychiatric facility in question. The culmination of this process is undoubtedly the finale, where the protagonist is lobotomized casually, making him definitively fall off the line between reason and madness, in favor of the latter, of course. Well done, psychiatrists!

What strikes about this film, besides the already overly cited constant dualism of each of its components, is certainly the acting: excellent! Acting is one of those things that, the better it is, the less noticeable it is in terms of presence. I mean that the better an actor is, the less you notice they are acting. And in this film, I can't think of actors who didn't genuinely seem crazy, or doctors, or whatever else they were portraying. Which is really commendable, considering also the difficulty that surely represents stepping into the shoes of a person afflicted by even severe mental illnesses.

Above all stands the figure of Jack Nicholson, who with just the bending of some facial muscles can short-circuit the brain of a calm person until a moment before: sensational, and perfect for the role of his character (it is no coincidence that this was the film that launched him and also earned him a much-deserved Oscar). Remarkable also is the character of the "Chief Bromden", about whom I won't say anything despite having already revealed even part of the ending but who really struck me, both technically and personally. There are also many delirious scenes, where patients scream at each other, that upset, that are really realistic (I've had the chance to frequent similar environments and it felt like reliving certain experiences) and exhausting. You want to enter the film to do something, to stop their fights or make them reason, but you can't, and you feel useless and a bit unhealthy yourself. A few lines must also be dedicated to Nitzsche's soundtrack, almost homonymous with a much better-known figure from the century preceding this film, which truthfully is rarely present but well-executed enough, although it left me relatively little impressed, perhaps due to its sparse presence.

The film takes us into the minds of the poor patients, longing for the thrill of freedom, but fearful due to their conditions and their ambitions constantly scaled down by the asylum staff. But McMurphy's arrival, from the beginning to the tragic ending, changes the game (the choice of this expression is not random) and will also change the history of cinema to some extent, delivering to the world what is undoubtedly a masterpiece of cinema on the subject of psychopathology and which sets very high standards from an acting and narrative perspective.