Recently, I decided to watch two movies that have a mental health hospital as the stage on which stories of their main characters unfold. One is an Indian movie in Hindi!
If you have watched the old classic 'One Flew Over The Cuckoos' Nest' (OFOTC) with Jack Nicholson as the main character then you are in the right neighborhood/Genre/ Category. The mischief that Jack N's character unleashes in the mental health hospital is very humorous. He does get punished with a dose of the much feared electric shock treatment. However, the movie has a serious and sad ending.
The other movie is Girl Interrupted, the movie I watched recently. It is milder than OFOTC with Winona Rider and Angelina Jolie as main characters/patients in a popular mental health hospital . Winona's character is scared and sensitive though somewhat delusional. Angelina is bold and rebellious somewhat like Jack Nicholson in OFOTC ! Tattoos and rings adorn her thin frame! One meets girls like the two characters in buses, public libraries and cheap restaurants in many cities in the USA. That is a sad fact....
The Hindi movie is kind of a tragedy also set in a mental hospital. The movie has all the ingredients of a typical Bollywood movie, yet is very different from the other popular movies ! The name of the movie is Khamoshi (pronounced 'Kha + Mow + She'. The word means 'Silence').
A young poet (Rajesh Khanna), jilted by a lady, displays signs of paranoia when he suspects that the lady is trying to get him killed. He feels used by the lady whom he loved and who is a professional singer. He is treated by electric shock also! Almost. The doctor assigns a lady nurse (Waheeda Rehman) to cure him by playing his new lady love. She has expertise in that category, you see, because she has cured another patient earlier (Dharmendra) whom she repeatedly refers to as Dev. Dev has left the hospital after recovery and is now happily married - he was in love with the nurse and the nurse seems to have reciprocated her love. This part of the story is shared with the viewer via flashbacks and a song ('Tum Pukar Lo') ! She is hesitant to take up Rajesh's case initially because she is still suffering from the separation from Dev, the previous patient!! However, she changes her mind after meeting Rajesh....
As the new patient RK recovers and is about to go home, the nurse has a mental breakdown. She confesses to the doctor that she has never 'acted' (like a lover) implying that she really fell in love with the two patients. She is left alone to suffer silently as each patient leaves the hospital. She becomes a patient in the same hospital where she once cured other patients !!
No comments:
Post a Comment