Titicut Follies is not as controversial or offensive as other reviewers might claim, I found the film to be an impartial look at life inside a mental asylum. So there are naked men, so there are people being force fed because they refuse to eat. There was no question in my mind as to whether the people residing in the asylum had mental disorders or not, of course they all did, even if their logic seemed sound their sanity was not up to the level that a normal person's would be considered to be. The staff may be considered 'primitive' by todays standards but I feel they had (especially the supervisors) genuine concern for their patients. Googling reviews on Titicut Follies i quickly gathered that clearly this is a movie that can be interpreted in a myriad of ways.
What got my attention were the things that were spoken about but not shown. Such as the suicide that happened the night prior and the prepping of recently deceased 'JIm' for burial, also the guardsman who spoke about the gas chamber where he couldn't breathe and tears came to his eyes and stuck on his clothes even after washing them, his wife couldn't bear the stench even when they were hung in the closet even after being washed. How he wondered how the gas didn't bother the patients, (I'm sure they were bothered by it). The racial comments by the guard and the irreverent bantering of the orderly to Jim, these are the only two issues that raised my suspicions of mistreatment but, I suspect these situations were typical of that time and nothing more should be made of it. What I've been wondering if the gas, the suicide and Jim's death all concerned the same person, namely Jim. Probably a stretch, but I'll have to watch it one more time to put the pieces together.
Even if my theory doesn't add up (which I'm sure it won't) the film offers a mesmerizing and (emotionally comforting) peek into a strange world long past of people and situations that most of us will never be able to experience.
When you watch the film be sure to enable subtitles because the sound isn't the best quality and also some of the patients inter-mesh gibberish with logical speech, the subtitles are what really made the film for me, without them, Titicut Follies will seem like a random set of images with no character development etc. and make an otherwise great film seem bland and empty.
What got my attention were the things that were spoken about but not shown. Such as the suicide that happened the night prior and the prepping of recently deceased 'JIm' for burial, also the guardsman who spoke about the gas chamber where he couldn't breathe and tears came to his eyes and stuck on his clothes even after washing them, his wife couldn't bear the stench even when they were hung in the closet even after being washed. How he wondered how the gas didn't bother the patients, (I'm sure they were bothered by it). The racial comments by the guard and the irreverent bantering of the orderly to Jim, these are the only two issues that raised my suspicions of mistreatment but, I suspect these situations were typical of that time and nothing more should be made of it. What I've been wondering if the gas, the suicide and Jim's death all concerned the same person, namely Jim. Probably a stretch, but I'll have to watch it one more time to put the pieces together.
Even if my theory doesn't add up (which I'm sure it won't) the film offers a mesmerizing and (emotionally comforting) peek into a strange world long past of people and situations that most of us will never be able to experience.
When you watch the film be sure to enable subtitles because the sound isn't the best quality and also some of the patients inter-mesh gibberish with logical speech, the subtitles are what really made the film for me, without them, Titicut Follies will seem like a random set of images with no character development etc. and make an otherwise great film seem bland and empty.