Mental illnesses and asylums in Mexican cinema (1917-1982)

Abstract

Beyond specialized studies and their “scientific” connotations, the so called mental disorders and their treatment by confinement and isolation have found varied means of art and media representation. The present essay outlines the way mexican cinema addresses the complex difficulties of insanity and its socio-cultural as well as political context  through several time spans. The study focuses on the various cinematographic products made along the theories and practices of anti-psychiatry arisen in postwar era Europe.