Le Pont de la rivière Kwaï

At first, the stretched out first half of THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI. felt like a flaw, but the movie's second half made me reconsider this. The plot shifts focus, and concentrates on an escaped Prisoner Of War, who fled from the camp and becomes part of a team sent back in to go and blow up the bridge. Suddenly, during the part of his recovery at a military hospital, the screenplay injects quite a bit of humor (the conversation between Warden and his superior officers about him not receiving parachute-training was a wonderful highlight) and from then on, when their mission starts, the film gets much more exciting. It made me appreciate the first hour more for the establishing reasons it was used for, and also because - to my surprise - the shifting in tone and pace worked wonders.

There's so much you could go into if you're looking to praise this film. Needless to mention what a fine performance Alec Guinness and other cast members gave, so I'll just point out how impressed I was when I saw the movie's climax. They way the script builds up to it, is one thing. Taking the time to lay out a strategy and incorporating the notion that this whole mission might even go terribly wrong at one point, successfully increases tension during those final scenes. But the fact that the filmmakers completely destroyed a real bridge and a real train...? No use of miniatures or other special effects. Now which movies made today would actually have the courage to show us something like that? Simply none. Those days are over.

The only thing I would have preferred, is having seen the first half of the film injected with a slightly more grim mood, because frankly, that cheerful (and very famous) whistle-tune of the prisoners and some of the fanfare-esquire parts of the musical score got on my nerves a bit. I'll just blame that on the fact that this foremost still is a Hollywood movie. And that's just the way anyone will have to take this film, regardless it was based on (and altered) real facts of war.

I recently saw The Bridge on the River Kwai at the Cinerama Dome, and it was quite spectacular. Unlike some of today's grand adventure films, you get to know the characters along with seeing great scenes of acting and cinematography. Alec Guinness is at the top of his form as the single minded Colonel Nicholson. The scene between Nicholson and Saito in Saito's hut is remarkable. Nicholson still will not concede defeat, he even takes offense that other officers of different armies gave in and worked alongside the enlisted men. Saito can't understand Nicholson's acceptance of his punishment, and it drives him crazy. The film's plot has two stories that are beautifully intertwined. Shears' return to the bridge is his only way to escape the bridge. In the film's final act, the tension is turned up as the British commandos try to blow up the bridge, and a train, and only then does Nicholson realise what the bridge really is. The Bridge on the River Kwai is one film that is hard to top, the only film able to do that is Lawrence of Arabia, both directed by the meticulous eye of David Lean. One director who could put intimacy in epic circumstances.

In my opinion, David Lean is one of the cinema's greatest directors, in the highest pantheon along with the likes of Kurosawa, Welles, De Sica, and Bergman. Lean's "Lawrence of Arabia" and his vastly underrated "A Passage to India" are unmitigated masterpieces, and some of his 'smaller' films, such as "Summertime," "Great Expectations," and "Brief Encounter" are true gems.

"The Bridge on the River Kwai" should justly be grouped with "Lawrence" and "India," as all three are sweeping in scope, and all three are some of the most thematically ambitious films ever made, reflecting a mature filmmaker at the peak of his craft. Like "Lawrence," "Kwai" does not flinch for a moment while it forces the viewer to gaze deep into the chasm of the human condition, and it is not an easy film to take in, as it presents us with profoundly symbolic (archetypal, you might say) character types, most of whom elicit both admiration and repulsion, sympathy and frustration. And while the film explores these character themes at length, it is ultimately content to leave the conflicts unresolved, happy simply to present us with the Hamlet-like paradoxes that are the human condition in all its glory and stupidity.

If there is any clear, unequivocal message that can be gleaned from "Kwai," it is an ode in praise of stoic virtue and the struggle for dignity and meaning in the face of a hostile universe-- in this case, in the face of an inhuman and absurd war. However, ironically, it is in this very aspect that the film, in my opinion, has its greatest failing. In retrospect, it would seem that in order to distill the film's philosophical elements down to universal themes, and perhaps in order to make the story palatable to 1950s audiences (and more Oscar-worthy?), the film greatly tones down the very inhumanity of the historical situation it portrays. In reality, the Japanese were perfectly capable of engineering their own bridges and, far more importantly, the building of the Burma-Thailand Railroad was an atrocity so vast and inhuman that it can only be rightly compared with the Nazi Holocaust and the Khmer Rouge Genocide. The true "stiff upper lip" displayed by the surviving prisoners-of-war from that hell in the jungle was not an insistence that a bridge be built right if it is to be built at all, etc.; the true "stiff upper lip" was mere survival itself, as thousands upon thousands were dying of starvation, overwork, constant beatings, summary executions, disease and exposure. While it is true that not every film about war needs to be "Shoah," "Schindler's List," or "The Killing Fields," and "Kwai" should be viewed on its own terms, as a film solely about the themes and characters it has chosen to depict; nevertheless, by so greatly downplaying the horrors of the actual historical situation it portrays, the film ultimately does a great disservice to the hundreds of thousands of people of several nationalities who suffered and died in the building of this monstrosity of a railroad. While it seems to me that the intentions of the filmmakers were noble, that Lean sought to explore the struggle of the human spirit under the greatest adversity, the film's light treatment of the still-seldom-discussed topic of Japanese war crimes inadvertently trivializes that very struggle.

Nonetheless, I still feel that "Kwai" is an amazing cinematic achievement in its own right. And while it would only be with heavy reservation that I place it on a list of "greatest films," it does manage to squeak onto my hypothetical Top 100.

About as Oscar-worthy as any film made in the '50s is David Lean's gripping BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI. Based loosely on a real-life incident, it tells the story of an imprisoned British officer (Alec Guinness) who loses sight of his mission when forced to build a bridge for the Japanese that will enable the enemy to carry supplies by train through the jungle during World War II. Guinness plays the crisp British officer to perfection, brilliant in all of his scenes but especially in his confrontations with Sessue Hayakawa. William Holden has a pivotal role as one of the prisoners who escapes and enjoys his freedom for awhile before being asked to return with a small squadron to destroy the bridge. Jack Hawkins and Geoffrey Horne have colorful roles too and all are superb under David Lean's direction.

The jungle settings filmed in Ceylon add the necessary realism to the project and there is never a suspension of interest although the story runs well over two-and-a-half hours. The film builds to a tense and magnificent climax with an ending that seems to be deliberately ambiguous and thought provoking. Well worth watching, especially if shown in the restored letterbox version now being shown on TCM.

Some of the best lines go to William Holden and he makes the most of a complex role--a mixture of cynicism and heroism in a character that ranks with his best anti-hero roles in films of the '50s. He brings as much conviction to his role as Alec Guinness does and deserved a Best Actor nomination that he did not get.

"The Bridge on the River Kwai" is a prinoner-of-war drama at its best, masterfully directed by David Lean.

Amazing direction, and the whole approach to making this film is timeless - a study in being ahead of its time. Stunning set pieces and production design - such and effort was put into this. Fantastic cinematography, filled to the brim with pitch-perfect pans, wide-shots, and tracking-shots. Intense and dramatic score, deservedly receiving one of the total of seven Academy Awards. Brilliant cast and in particular Alec Guinness, who perfectly portrays a man of honour.

What is a big shame is the way Colonel Philip Toosey - the original colonel, portrayed through Nicholson - was misrepresented, in that he actually acted very differently and much more courageously than in the film.

Nonetheless, as a look into the historic event that took place in 1943 Burma, it is absolutely brilliant, and although the film does not carry loads of emotional moments, it is technically excellent, and greatly entertaining.

Highly recommended.