Review of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) by Prach P — 14 May 2013

This film is about crazy people living in a system that seeks to keep them from being sane. It's a satirical film with many serious messages. Many of them, involving the excesses of conformism and authority, are all too commonplace now in the 21st century. (The film was made in 1975 - at the end of the Vietnam War and just past the high point of the Cold War - at which time the messages must have been acute.) But it still has some very interesting messages and observations.

First of all, the film shows us the softer, more feminine, face of authority: an authority who uses culture and civility to shame non-conformists into conforming, crushing them by the weight of their own guilt rather than by brute force.

Secondly, the film observes the crucial role of women in preserving authoritarianism. After watching the film, I wondered how authoritarianism would ever have persisted without women at all.

Thirdly, the film shows us a particular form of dishonesty that could lie at the back of the mind of a person of integrity. I was led to suspect that this kind of dishonesty must even be a necessary symptom of moral uprightness in general.

This is a great film. I like.