Films involving Mental Illness

Mental Illness: Major Films no photo.

Title	K-Pax (2001)
Alternative/Original Title
Disability	Mental
Country	USA
Length	?
Genre	Drama
Rating	?
Director	Iain Softley
Cast	Kevin Spacey Jeff Bridges Mary McCormack Alfre Woodard
Notes	Kevin Spacey plays Prot a patient at the Psychiatric Institute of Manhattan. He claims to be an alien. Look elsewhere in this list and you'll come across "Man Facing Southeast" which has a similar premise. It is not unusual for mental patients to assume the identity of someone famous and/or powerful like Christ or Napoleon (see the book The Three Christs of Ypsilenti I think I have the name right). Saying you are an alien I suppose is fairly new but not that far removed from claiming to be abducted by aliens or subscribing to a religion 'founded' by aliens (Scientology). Jeff Bridges is Mark Powell the Chief of Clinical Psychiatry. He is sceptical about Prot's origins. The chances of someone being an alien are 10 to the power of 9 more than your winning the lottery:-) Yet Powell wonders how Prot knows so much about the solar system. Why when anyone with reasonable intelligence could swot up on this? This idea of what is learning is similar to Travolta's super quick reading route to genius in Phenomenon or the test given to Tim Robbins in I.Q. If some universities can use multiple choice test papers perhaps the directors do have this idea of what is learning. Another favourite 'test' involves Prot's calculating abilities (perhaps he is autistic?). That Prot 'cures' other patients says more about the nebulous nature of psychiatry than his alien powers. Powell spends most of the film trying to discover if Prot is genuine but if you assume this is the question you'll never find the answer. The answer is not in what evidence there is but whether you are a sceptic or a believer hence the comparison in the film between Prot and Jesus. The cast of this film suggest somethng interesting but reviews have been very mixed. The film begins with a beggar in a wheelchair who watches Prot's arrival at a train station.

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