Il ponte

A group of young students are ordered to protect a strategically totally unimportant bridge at the end of the war. The initial euphoria changes suddenly to fright while the Allies are entering. Probably one of the essential and most important anti-war films ever. Wicki convincingly captured the atmosphere of the last war days, this constant indecision between fear and hope and forlornness. Especially well made are the psychological portrays of the boys, their every day life in school, at home, within the clique and the mixture of real dedication and adventure mentality which leaves them to look at the war partly as national duty and partly as a romantic game. But as soon as the war collides with the life of the boys, the contrast between those close-ups of round-eyed, innocent child's faces and the churned up mud of the battlefield, as well as the bookish discourses of "courage" and "cowardice" makes the absurdity of the war pretty damn clear. Indeed, war is a game, but harrowing, arousing and bitter which has lost all gaily playfulness.

We were shown this movie at school, so I always remembered it as a politically correct piece educational film - which it is, in a way. This is film with a clear purpose. It wants you to learn something. The amazing thing is that it is also a good film. Its message "War Is Bad" is brought across not so much by showing blood, death and destruction but by the means of classical tragedy: There are no "bad guys" in this film; on the contrary, most people try to do good, be humane. (E.g. the boys are told to guard the bridge in order to keep them away from the front.) But what they do results in disaster, because the evil is war itself.

Die Brücke was on Dutch or Belgian TV some 20 years ago, when I saw it. Like many others I was deeply impressed. There has been criticism on acting and directing. This criticism is correct. But it does not matter. What counts is the script. Only seldom I have seen a movie with a better script. Here a modified quote from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly applies: never seen wasted young lives so badly. With a fairly simple story Die Brücke makes mercilessly clear what war and National-Socialism is. I can understand, why nobody has the courage to do a remake. Perfection might lead to a lesser impact in this case. One can argue, that Paths of Glory and Hamburger Hill are better. Not a bad word about these two, but Die Brücke is emotionally the most gripping.

I lived through that time, I was seventeen, and I know fourteen year olds were fighting to the last " boy ". The realism of this film still takes me back to '45. It happened that way.

A couple of days before the end of World War II, seven sixteen year-old German boys of a small village are recruited for military service. The idealistic Hans Scholten (Folker Bohnet), Albert Mutz (Fritz Wepper), Walter Forst (Michael Hinz), Jurgen Borchert (Frank Glaubrecht), Karl Horber (Karl Michael Balzer), Klaus Hager (Volker Lechtenbrink) and Sigi Bernhard (Günther Hoffmann) join the army on 26 April 1945 with great expectations and enthusiasm to defend their motherland Germany in the front against the will of their parents. Their English teacher Stern (Wolfgang Stumpf) unsuccessfully tries to convince Commander Fröhlich (Heinz Spitzner) to refuse the enlistment of the youngsters. After one day training, the soldiers are summoned to the front but the Commander of the 463rd Battalion of the 3rd Company assigns Sergeant Heilmann (Günter Pfitzmann) to stay with the rookies "protecting" a useless bridge in their village in order to spare the boys. However, in the chaos of the imminent defeat with German soldiers fleeing from the American troops, Heilmann is murdered and the boys defend the small bridge with their lives on 27 April 1945.

"Die Brücke" is another powerful and impressive German film about coming of age in times or war. This anti-war movie probably reflects the thoughts of the brain-washed youngsters by the Nazi ideology and propaganda in the 40's and is heartbreaking to see sixteen year-old boys playing war like a game and without awareness of the seriousness of the situation. Being a father, it is also very sad to see the powerless widows and mothers trying to protect their enthusiastic sons that want to fight to defend their country. The realism of this dramatic movie is awesome and totally different from the approach of Hollywood movies, where Germans are usually evil soldiers and the situation of the civilian population is forgotten, but unfortunately it has not been released in Brazil on VHS or DVD. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): Not Available