One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?

"One flies to the left, another flies to the right, Another flies over the cuckoo's nest."

This film is Milos Forman’s Oscar best picture winner created in 1975 as a comedy-drama. It was based on the 1962 novel of the same name by Ken Kesey. We have some stars like Jack Nicholson who plays a new patient at a mental institution and Louise Fletcher who plays an austere nurse. He also earned six Golden Globe Awards, including that for best drama, and six BAFTA Awards, including that for best film. The action is set during the early 1960s in the security ward of a state mental hospital.

When women want to be mean, they do it in the most perfect way. No nuance is forgotten, no segment is neglected, no attitude, no gesture, no twitch, no wrinkle, no facial expression component, no accusation... Nothing. Every fiber participates and even every cell. Women can be mean with their whole being. No one else on the planet can do that. Although feminine malice is always the same, it comes in many forms, some brutal and direct, others subtle and discreetly disguised, all carefully elaborated, insinuating or allusive, some consequential, and finally, most with a smile on their lips.

The malice of Sister Ratched (capitalization is necessary) has causes that can justify it and even reactions that honor it, but it is so authentic that you wonder if hell has a collaboration agreement with this lady written in terms of perfect equality. On the other side, Randle Patrick McMurphy, a man at odds with society, is superficial and conceited, but also a bon vivant, a gang boy, a smacker, and a jester. In the war he reflexively declares against Sister Ratched, he comes from positions of amateurism, so we never question who will win, only when and how.

“In this country, when something is out of order, then the quickest way to get it fixed is the best way.” - Ken Kesey

Moreover, there are a lot of markings that suggest that McMurphy's reaction was carefully and subtly provoked because, from the first moment he meets Sister Ratched, he sees through her clearly and does not hide it. McMurphy is a recidivist convict (attempted rape this time) trying to escape prison detention through the much more lenient regime of a mental institution, and she feels responsible for each of the patients in the ward where he landed. She cannot tolerate an undisguised intruder (because we soon learn, the asylum hides a lot of others who are well camouflaged).

In the game that begins, she plays at home, and McMurphy is away, and even though he quickly captures the masked complicity of the audience, it is not enough. In a game like this, everything counts, from the decor to the referees, props, and chroniclers, and Sister Ratched dominates the game from all directions. She is not interested in the game, only in victory. However, McMurphy performs for the audience and the spectacle, so his defeat is beautiful and superior to any anonymous or unremarkable success.

That's what it's about, and the story of the confrontation is related to us (silently) by a huge, silent Indian, Chief Bromden, only as retarded as he needs to be, who has much in common with McMurphy: the free spirit of his race, the inability to adapt to a reality that seems suffocating and oppressive, the desire to preserve both his inner order and its values.

It's considered by many to be one of the greatest films ever made, and is No. 33 on the American Film Institute's... 100 Movies list.