Haunting allegory of life under communism

Rating: Null/10 (16 August 2011)

I just got back from seeing this movie for the first time. And what haunting movie it was!
I can't really add to all the good reviews here, except for one thing. As far as I understood it, this movie was not just a comment on 1950's psychiatry, but also an allegory of life under communism in Chechoslovakia. Next to the direct police oppression there was obviously a lot of 'mind control' going on as well.
This reading explains some of the 'goofs' noted about this film, the most important being that when McMurphy wakes up after the Christmas- party, it seems to be spring outside. This refers to the Prague spring. The Prague Spring obviously led to the full scale invasion of the Soviet Union of Chechoslovakia, analogous to 'the institution' (the Chief refers to it as The Combine in the book) 'invading' McMurphy's brain by lobotomizing it. Another hint is Martini (Danny DeVito) saying 'hovno' in the card game at the end, which is Slovak for 'shit'. Since the original novel is an American novel written in 1959, I'm guessing Forman put this in for a reason.
I point this out because I just watched this together with a Slovak lady, and apparently, amongst Slovaks and Chechs alike it's kind of common knowledge that the movie is also about Chechoslovakia (and it's also still about the horrors of mental institutions, obviously).