Today, art is all but dead anyway” says Mr. “Ladies and Gentlemen, what you are about to see is a horror film, with all the degeneracy peculiar to that genre. You can either get into disturbing & absurdly funny premises or else reject it with vehemence. The works of Czech surrealist filmmaker Jan Svakmajer (“Alice”, “Faust”, “Little Otik”, etc) are highly divisive. As in life, there are many moments here left for us to contemplate on what is concrete and what a hollow delusion is. Peter Blatty marvelously builds & breaks down the lines that divide rationality and insanity. But, the dynamics between these two central characters never devolves into a stereotype and remain partly humorous & profound until the end. ![]() Colonel Vincent Kane (Stacy Keach in his best role) is appointed as a head psychiatrist to use unusual methods to cure the assortment of weird inmates.Īs in these types of films, one tough nut patient named Captain Billy Cutshaw (Scott Wilson) doesn’t buy Kane’s words and argues with him on everything from God to politics. ![]() The narrative takes place on an abandoned castle that has been transformed into an insane asylum for the traumatized Vietnam War veterans. Novelist William Peter Blatty’s (“Exorcist”) directorial debut has attained cult classic status, in the years preceding its lukewarm commercial response. The Ninth Configuration (1980) | William Peter Blatty A lot of themes addressed in Manic were addressed relatively deeper in Cretton’s break-out indie feature Short Term 12. However, the film does get a bit sentimental in the latter half and treats some characters as mere ciphers. Manic deals with ambiguities that are avoided by most psychiatric institution dramas. He suggests no one can escape from their destructive temperaments, but one can learn to control them. Monroe clearly confers that no pat resolutions are waiting for these teens, just after staying a few weeks in the institution. It’s hinted early that the only thing which might impede the recovery is their relapse into destructive habits. The imagery – lacking any stylistic adornment – delves into the teenagers’ mental health issues, keeping intact all its complexity. The institution is run by a perceptive and calm counselor named Dr. It’s devoid of the age-old dramatic tropes of sadistic nurses and drug-addled inmates. Jordan Melamed’s American indie is set in the juvenile wing of a psychiatric institution. If that’s the case, please educate me in the comments. Despite my best efforts, I must have missed out including some hidden gems that explores this subject. Finally, it’s well-known that lists are subjective. Titicut Follies (1967), Warrendale (1967), Boy Interrupted (2009), and ‘Til Madness Do Us Part are some of the must-see documentaries that raises lot of questions not just about mental health, but about the human race as a whole. But there are plenty of documentaries on the subject which most often does a better job than its fictional counterpart. The list doesn’t include any documentaries. But the movies still has a long way to go from its ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach. It’s psychiatric care facilities or psychiatric institutions now. ![]() Some of it are painfully cliched, but as I mentioned earlier it’s all a kind of documentation of the evolving human perception on mental health. The genre of films included in the list varies from dark comedy, drama, horror, mystery, and thriller. Related to Mental Asylum Films: 12 Films That Explore Mental Illness But, films on this list explore how the stringent and the humane approaches within psychiatric institutions have further afflicted and helped the vulnerable individuals respectively. Films are also guilty of reducing mentally afflicted individuals, placed in the institutions as ‘comical caricatures’.
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