reviews

Time again for some movie reviews. I saw 'One flew over cuckoo's nest' few days back. If you have heard the name, then probably you already know that it is a classic. Quite longer than the usual english movies but by all means, worth it. Jack Nicholson puts his best foot forward and bagged his first academy award for the McMurphy role. It's a story of Jack's stay in an asylum and how do both affect eachother. It features Nurse Ratched and other patients. Jack doesn't approve of the measures taken to treat the patients and gets cross with the staff, leading to a finely executed unpredictable climax.

Its undisclosed whether Jack is only faking the insanity or is he really 'cuckoo'. The movie scores both in terms of screenplay and performances. The actors are outstanding. It won best actor, actress, director, picture and screenplay (a feat only achieved by 'It happened one night' earlier). The movie touches you emotionally and the ending is extremely gripping as well as heart-wrenching. The movie's trivia are really interesting to read on IMDB. It's incredible how few scenes were shot impromptu. A must watch!

One movie that it reminds me of in hindi cinema is the classic black and white Asit Sen's Khamoshi. It is the story of a nurse asked to nurture her mental patients with the love they have been missing. The story grows tragic as the nurse gets unwillingly involved, more than she should have. Known for great dialogues and lyrics by Gulzar. Somehow I feel the black and white era was more productive than any other in Indian cinema. The quality of movies is still improving after ridiculous productions of late 70s and 80s. Anyways, its a whole different topic of discussion.

A slight parallel I could draw from the feel good factor that Jack displays in One flew over cuckoo's nest is Sanjay Dutt's role in Munnabhai. Both display a sense of more compassion for fellow human beings in general than their bad professional standing projects. Both bring out a gradual change in the system though **, I shall leave this here because I dont want to disclose the details about climax of any movie. See it for yourself :)