PUNITIVE THERAPIES AND THE QUESTION OF ETHICS IN CINEMATIC PSYCHIATRY : A STUDY OF SELECT MALAYALAM FILMS

Abstract

This paper examines staging of psychiatry in select Malayalam films as a nexus of medical practice, social authority, and gendered regulation. Through a close analysis of Ulladakkam and Thalavattam, it traces the presentation of psychiatric institutions as arenas where treatment converges with surveillance, emotional silencing, and the management of deviance. Drawing on the notions of Michel Foucault, Nicholas Rose and Peter Sedwick, the discussion highlights the ways diagnosis, therapy, and clinical authority structure the identity of the patient and dictate the boundaries of acceptable behaviour. The films foreground the capacity of psychiatry to categorise suffering, suppress memory, and redefine subjectivity within moral and political frameworks. By situating madness within networks of trauma, gender hierarchy, and institutional control, this study demonstrates how cinema interrogates the ethical tensions of psychiatric care, and acknowledges the intimate vulnerabilities of those subjected to its gaze.