A Ponte da Desilusão

This German contender for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar is an unflinching war effort that obviously draws comparisons – in its narrative depicting the disillusionment experienced by a number of schoolboys-turned-soldiers – with ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (1930), albeit dealing with the subsequent world conflict. Though only rated * by the "Leslie Halliwell Film Guide", it boasts a favourable write-up therein – on the other hand, I was under the impression that it was given more than *** in the Leonard Maltin equivalent! For the record, it has received its due in "War Movies" – an oversized but appealing book on the subject owned by my father – and is even listed in the all-time top 3,000 movies ranked by the "Wonders In The Dark" website.

The acclaim this garnered upon release won Wicki the co-director gig on Darryl F. Zanuck's super production revolving around the D-Day landings THE LONGEST DAY (1962); his brief Hollywood tenure also comprised THE VISIT (1964) and, another WWII adventure, MORITURI (1965) – a distinguished actor in his own right, he is perhaps best-known for his supporting turn in Michelangelo Antonioni's LA NOTTE (1961). With respect to the film's cast, only the face of a youthful Fritz Wepper – future co-star of CABARET (1972) and the "Derrick" TV series – was familiar to this viewer. Oddly boasting no credits on the print I watched (except for the title and company credits!), this competed at the Oscars against Italy's THE GREAT WAR – a viewing of which followed in quick succession – that concerned itself, albeit on a vaster scale and in a serio-comic tone, with WWI…but they were surprisingly defeated by the exotic French entry i.e. BLACK ORPHEUS.

The movie is basically divided into three parts: the first 40 minutes showing the boys in school; the next 30 illustrating their basic training and posting; and the last half-hour being devoted to the combat sequences. Most of the teenage boys are coming-of-age and experience their first sexual hang-ups before being sent to the front: a blond boy with the only female student in the class; another the salesgirl in his father's shop (who is also the boss' lover); and the cowardly Mayor's son towards the gymnasium instructor in a nearby girls' school. The battle scenes are certainly effectively rendered and appropriately harrowing, if occasionally over-the-top: a G.I., astonished to be confronted by a bunch of 16 year-olds, tells them to run off to their mothers but they find his condescending attitude insulting…and he is literally gutted by their response!; an equally disdainful local, then, has his face blown off and body scarred by a backfiring bazooka, etc. The supreme irony of the film is that, while the boys' superior officer (who is himself shot almost instantly for apparent desertion by his own compatriots!) orders them to defend the expendable bridge ostensibly to keep the kids out of harm's way, the fact that the German forces intend blowing it up regardless so as to stem the Allied advance ensures that all but one of the fresh-faced soldiers sacrifice their lives to the fatherland unnecessarily!

When I saw in news accounts the lovely yet fearful face of a 16 year-old, who had defected from the Taliban during the campaign against terrorists in Afghanistan, in the aftermath of the 9/11, I was taken back to Bernhard Wicki's Die Brücke (The Bridge), to the faces of young German boys who were recruited by the Nazis to defend a "last" bridgehead, in the final days of World War II in Europe. In both cases, young "true believers" were used as cannon fodder by cynical adults in their futile power games, which they had disguised as moral crusades.

A tiny band of boys, holding weapons as big as they, their bodies and faces still soft and fresh and tight, facing the juggernaut of tanks and artillery and machine guns which we know will soon tear them to pieces. And for what? An ideal?

I suspect that The Bridge was the basis for the Timothy Hutton, Sean Penn vehicle, "Taps". However, The Bridge is the starker and more brutal treatment because, unlike the what-if story of Taps, the what-if does not apply to The Bridge. In fact, throughout history, the use of children in furtherance of warfare has a sickening frequency, the earliest I know of being the Children's Crusade, and now we have the Tamil Tigers (little girls with lockets of cyanide vials) and Palestinian boy bombs.

The Bridge deserves to be revived and shown to as wide an audience as possible in this Dastardly New World we live in.

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.

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.

In my opinion is the best war film I've ever seen. The story is one o the best examples of the nonsense and madness of war. Seems incredible that this movie has been done by Germany and released after 14 years since the end of the war. You can see a traumatic passage from childhood to maturity in the principal characters. The film is from the late fifties so there is no big special effects like "saving private Ryan". Also, the movie is not showing a major and historical battle, with a lot of soldiers and tanks fighting between explosions. In fact,the war scenes can be seen only in the last half hour. The final scene on the bridge is one of the most disturbing scenes of war films.