The Bridge on the River Kwai

Rating:
Summary: "Be happy in your work"
Review: In 1957, a movie was premiered that was the most awe-inspiring of its time. It was a massive project, involving a collaboration of several countries and the building of a bridge. It was the film that put director David Lean on the map and brought home Best Picture and six other Oscars at the Academy Awards. Although Lean and producer Sam Spiegel later topped themselves with "Lawrence of Arabia" and their first film's flaws have since become apparent, "The Bridge on the River Kwai is still a landmark of motion pictures and still awes people (Major spoilers ahead).

"Madness! Madness!" The last words said in the film by Colonel Clipton can be used to sum up the film. Most of the major characters were mad in a way, but some more so than the others. Let's take Alec Guinness as Colonel Nicholson, one of his most renowned performances. Nicholson is a stiff upper lip officer, who believes that by building a 'proper' bridge, he is helping the future and providing the prisoners with better work and self-esteem. He doesn't seem to take into account that this bridge will be used by the Japanese in Burma against the allies and that men are dying on the River Kwai. There are three other main characters in the story. Shears, played by William Holden, Colonel Saito, played by Sessue Hayakawa and Major Warden, played by Jack Hawkins. Shears, from what we can tell, doesn't want anything to do with the war or the P.O.W camp. He bribes officers and, when he escapes, tries to weasel his way out of going back. As an actor, Holden has always been underrated, yet this movie will have you asking why. Hayakawa was 68 years old when he was cast as Saito, yet he doesn't look or act like it. Unlike Nicholson, he only builds the bridge because he has to. Like Shears, he does his duty because of what would happen if he did otherwise. The third character, Warden, is different on the other hand. He sees the war as a game, playing with his plastic explosives as if he's a kid with firecrackers. He also believes only in the mission, carrying around suicide pills should anyone have to be killed.

Speaking of the River Kwai, the actual story was worse than it is here and this is one of only two problems I have with the story. Hundreds, if not thousands, of prisoners of war died along this railway from causes such as malnutrition, dysentery, malaria, gangrene, beatings, exhaustion and torture. And some just wanted to die. This sugarcoating of the actual story is one of the most controversial parts of the movie, but what did you expect? This is a Hollywood Epic. The other problem with the film is lack of focus. We leave the Nicholson-Saito story just when we are to decide whether to cheer or boo Guinness so events involving the commandos can be fitted. Both are major stories, yet the producers can't decide which is more important.

The Colonel Bogey March has become one of the most renowned scenes in film history. Originally, however, the song was almost not used because it had some rude lyrics. So, it was decided to whistle it. The scenes where the march is first used seem to foreshadow other coming events. The P.O.Ws march past "the graveyard" and the hospital where the sick are kept. They are like new recruits marching past battle hardened veterans as they go to war. Shears remarks to Corporal Weaver, "We're going to be a busy pair of gravediggers". The second time the march is used is near the end, as the gang marches across the bridge just before the commandos strike. The march, as happy as it is, is an omen of what is to come next and what happens is not always that good.

"There's always the unexpected". Filmmaker John Milius (Who is interviewed on the Limited Edition DVD) once said that the commando mission in this movie is the best he has ever seen on film. Why? This movie follows "Murphy's Law" or everything that can go wrong will go wrong. The team parachutes off course and one of them gets killed. Then they have to take an alternate route because of Japanese Patrols. Then Warden gets shot because the youngest member hesitated at killing a soldier, delaying them further. However, they continue on and on. They finally reach the bridge, marveling at the quality of the structure and the apparent comradeship of the prisoners with the Japanese. They think that, from there, it's easy sailing. However, here's Murphy's Law again, for nature has some tricks up her sleeve. Also, the same officer who got Warden injured is still unprepared for killing when the moment comes.

Ironically, the person who destroys the bridge is the same man who advocated its construction. Nicholson's actions, however, still spark debate to this day. Many believe that he would never do such a thing and that he must have been knocked unconscious we he did what he did. However, what about his last line "What have I done?" In my view,
though he loved the bridge like it was his own child, he realizes the enormity of what he has been doing and that he must murder his child.

In the end, the bridge is destroyed, but for what cost? Everyone involved is either dead or doomed to die. Their fates have been sealed. On the other hand, life has survived. The first shot we see in the movie is of a bird floating around in the sky. This represents nature's tranquillity, before it is disrupted by the machines of war. The last shot we see is of the same bird and once again is tranquillity. Only this time, it is a return to peace. Men may have kicked aside life in their quest to build and destroy the bridge, but they are just temporary visitors. Nature is a permanent resident.

Rating:
Summary: A True Classic
Review: Last night I enjoyed the pleasure of watching "The Bridge on the River Kwai" for the first time, and it was an experience I won't soon forget. David Lean crafts a visual masterpiece; the stunning landscapes and awe-inspiring scale of the bridge are utterly amazing. Character-development is this film's other primary strength; each of the main characters provides a unique portrayal of pride and its effects on man, encouraging the viewere to think as he/she is entertained.

The film is moderately-paced throughout. There isn't an abundance of action for today's impatient audiences, but the film never becomes boring. The second disc features an abundance of extras for a movie of this age, including an excellent one-hour documentary. Overall, this is a great purchase for any fan of classic cinema.

Rating:
Summary: Well-done revival of a classic
Review: DVD technology on this edition makes the clarity of image as good as it originally was in the theaters.

What with George Orwell loose about the shop during the century's early years, and the head-cases of Fourteenth Army roaring about the jungle during the war, it is perhaps little wonder why modern day Myanmar has so many problems. As Sessue Hayakawa's camp commandant shows, Englishmen can drive Asians crazy.

As lovingly described in George MacDonald Fraser's wartime memoir, Quartered Safe Out Here, Fourteenth Army seems to have been a haven for lunatic British officers and other ranks willing to have a go at a variety of desparate adventures.

These characters collide with William Holden, a Bogey who represents the average sensual man central to American policy during the war and since, who is unwilling to get shot at for the dear old school-house, said dear old school-house having been for many American, Depression era enlisted men reform school, the orphanage, or the Big House.

Of course, Lean made this film before Vietnam which displayed clearly that American policy is no more exportable than British. Our "development" model tells people in other lands that we share self-interest, but it is simply not the case that all men are motivated by self-interest.

Also, the presentation of the Burmese gals in the movie is absurd, for the movie assumes without argument that an Asian woman will fall in love with an American: a trope common enough in the 1950s, ridiculous today.

In Kwai, Alec Guiness drives the Japanese commander crazy by his insistence on simultaneously collaborating with the enemy, and showing him that, don't you know, only Englishmen know how to build a bridge. The central paradox of WWII and the subsequent world is that the POW's situation has been generalized, and most men in an administered world wind up constructing pieces of same in an alienated fashion.

The average sensual man tries, as do the POWs in the camp, to get away with a minimalist committment. As a representative of a generation of British and American men which has died off, Guinness sees that it would demoralize the men to do a bad job but this causes him to violate his own military's rules.

Guinness' old-school thinking is a form of Benthamite utilitarianism in which the individual including the commander is willing not only to sacrifice his life for the greater good of the whole, but his personal integrity. Holden's way of thinking will be more familiar to modern day me generation men both British and American who base their worldview on individual, inviolable rights.

Recently, David Bowie revived the iron beauty of this committment as a cinematic trope in Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence, where Bowie plays a Lord Jim type figure who is willing (because of personal betrayals back home) to sacrifice himself for his men.

However, American audiences rejected Lawrence, and it is unlikely they would, today, accept the clash of world-views in Kwai. Today, there is no sense of the upper-class military officer willing to sacrifice himself for his men, and indeed, this entire theme was short-lived. It probably arose as a result of the *kindermord* of the trenches of WWI in an attempt, by the generation of the 1920s, to make some sense of the death of older brothers; for from the 17th century to the Edwardian era, British officers scorned their men as scum, scrapings, leavings and riff-raff, a scorn memorialized in the Duke of Wellington's comment: "I do not know whether they will frighten the French: but by G-d they frighten me."

The final judgement of the MO (medical officer) makes what sense there is, and that is the pity of war, a pity we've perhaps forgotten. America has returned to the Philippines, and England (with strange enthusiasm) to Afghanistan. For there is, as Kipling knew, an attraction to colonialism as an alternative to solving problems back home.

Rating:
Summary: A Must: Grand Scale Epic Depicting Tragic Nature of Humans
Review: Though William Holden is given the first billing of the credits, "The Bridge on the River Kwai" is without doubt Alec Guinness's film. And the film's setting may lead you to think this masterpiece as a "war movie"; that is not exactly true.

"The Bridge on the River Kwai" begins with intense battle of will. As British Colonel Nicholson (Guinness) refuses to join the work of building a bridge, Japanese Colonel Saito tests his will in the most extreme ways. But many keen-eyed viewers will soon realize that both have something in common, which finally draws each other after Nicholson's long, long suffering under the hot sun in Southeast Asia. Ironically, Nicholson finds himself deeply involved in nearly impossible task of building a bridge more than he actually knows. But to what purpose?

As this storyline shows, "The Bridge on the River Kwai" brilliantly works as a fable, and the superb acting of Alec Guinness, whom younger generations probably remember as Obi-Wan of "Star Wars," will rivet your eyes on the screen. The cinematograhy is also great, capturing the humid climate of the place to give the film authentic atmosphere. But most of all, this is made before CGI became popular in moviemaking -- just imagine they had to make all of those production designs!

Looking back from now, David Lean's epic-scale story seems to lose its power in the latter half of the film, in which Holden's character tries to destroy the bridge. His character is a little unconvincing, compared with Guinness and Hayakawa, and Lean, I am afraid, stretched the film too long to depict Holden's deadly mission though his trek in the jungle itself is an engrossing one. And you may feel Hayakawa'a performance is a little theatrical -- but keep in mind, he first became an instant star in Hollywood in 1915 with "Cheat" (directed by Cecil B. DeMille, another director who preferred big-scale movies). But don't worry, you soon forget these things.

"The Bridge on the River Kwai" is a masterpiece that only golden age of Hollywood could produce; not flashy special effects but talented actors with dedicated crew made it possible to exist. Watch it.

Pierre Boulle, a French writer who wrote the original book of "The Bridge on the River Kwai" based on his own experience during the WW2 and his days in prison camp, is also the author of "Planet of the Apes." The latter book (and the original film, to some extent) is also intelligent and iroical as well as David Lean's masterpiece. Try it.

Rating:
Summary: As good as the real story
Review: I had mixed feelings about this movie when it first came out...I was 13 and living in Japan - into WWII themes (looking for "War souvenirs" and playing with Japanese kids...) I loved the suspense and vivid colors and was haunted by the ever-enduring jungle and its sounds..(Ceylon, or Sri Lanka was an excellent choice for a filming locale - looked alot like Burma,
where most of the story was to have taken place). The characters, of course, were what I focused on as I grew older and
viewed the movie again and again. The American, played by William Holden, of course, had to be anti-war and vaguely anti-British and colonial...This was to be expected and was not a great surprise. Major Warden, played by Jack Hawkins, was my favorite. He played a type of Englishman that I greatly admired when I was 20; a combination of scholar and warrior which the British can only carry off. Brilliant student of foreign languages and archaelogist who gets a thrill out of leading indigenous peoples to victory over the enemy (T.E. Lawrence and

Sir Leonard Wooley come to mind)...

Katchanaburi in Thailand is the site of the real Bridge, some of which can still be seen today...The bridge was hit by B-25s flying from India...not as romantic as parachuting into occupied Burma and humping the jungle. I was amazed by the similarity of the movie location and the real location...the movie people cetainly did their homework on that one. There is an Allied cemetery there in town, and a nice museum near the bridge (reconstructed), which can be crossed...some good Thai restaurants also make a very relaxing and educational visit.
Even though the movie and the real story were different in those respects, I feel that the movie was very enjoyable and entertaining in its own right.

Rating:
Summary: culture doesn't signify goodness
Review: This isn't another more war movie but one of the most difficult to fully understand and truly superb.
Colonel Saito direct the prisoners camp. He doesn't understand the war moral of the English and American prisoners owing to his surrendering. He thinks they aren't men but only trash. But English colonel Nicholson represents another view of professional military life. Saito thinks he's soft and coward, but this is false: Nicholson has a puritan ethics that wins finally. Otherwise the Japanese experts are unable to build the bridge and Nicholson wants to collaborate because he conceives these work at first only as a task to preserve the moral of his men because escape it's impossible in the jungle... except for the strong resolute soldier played by William Holden. But the stiffness of so many years of military command and surely the accumulated penalties of the war undermines the reason of Nicholson and he gets too much involved with the bridge and so, in clear treason by full collaboration with the enemy although he's unconscious of that until the attack of the commandos to blow all the works. It seems that the madness of Nicholson has something of contagious and his men obey him without discussion. Only the English physician is astonished by all the nonsense.
But for me, the most disturbing personage in this film is curiously a relatively secondary one: the chief of commandos played by Jack Hawkins, because he's an scholar from Cambridge, but -as the lively Holden understands- he has a strange drive towards death: explosive management, weapons and a taste for destruction being a cultivated man. One of the best films of all themes and all time.

Rating:
Summary: A disgrace to all Allied WW2 veterans
Review: This film is an attempt to sensationalize one of the most horrendous atrocities of WWII in the Pacific, namely the building of the "Death Railway". The film underscores the fact that thousands of Allied POW's died at the hands of the Japanese in building their strategic railroad through southeast Asia. Many of the charactors and events depicted in the movie are poorly represented and are utter fiction, and thus have no place in my video collection. POW's marching and whistling? Give me a break! For a true account of this event, read Clifford Kinvig's book 'River Kwai Railway'.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best war movies!
Review: The Bridge on the River Kwai VHS ~ William Holden must be considered to be one of the best war movies of all time. Alec Guiness is absolutely amazing in his portrayal of the English POW and he richly deserved the academy award that he received that year. The tune whistled by the English soldiers in the begining of the movie has become a classic and people who have not seen this movie know instantly what the name of the movie is if one whistles this tune.

Rating:
Summary: "Madness! Madness!"
Review: The last line sums it up very well, but I guess that's what war does to people. People are changed in many ways by it, and this is a good example of that. William Holden plays another roguish character who gets turned head-over-heels once more in his mission, as does Alec Guiness. Whatever the case, the movie starts out rather slow, then kicks it in as Holden joins the Canadian and the Britt on thier mission to destroy the bridge. Meanwhile, Alec Guiness and his men struggle to build that bridge and take pride in it. Guiness's character is rather interesting. In some ways he's a very resolute man, yet in others somewhat fooled by his own resolution. Once again, that's what war and imprisonment do to you.

The climax is quite the nail-biter as you see person after person fall... But I won't spoil the whole bloody thing. Still, everyone seems driven on by their own different senses of pride and that, in the end, is what is their mutual downfall. The only person who seems to have a grip on reality by the end of this all is the doctor. And, I should mention, he's the one who stands on the riverbed looking at the battle-scarred area around him screaming 'Madness! Madness!' as the credits start to roll.

Very good movie. Reccomended.

Rating:
Summary: Whistle (and go mad) while you work
Review: If someone had the inclination, "Bridge on the River Kwai" could have been divided into two very respectable movies. The first, concerning a group of British prisoners of war charged with erecting the title piece, would have been a neat little psychological drama and character study starring Alec Guinness and Sessue Hayakawa. The second, an action-adventure thriller, would follow William Holden, accompanied by Jack Hawkins, as they braved the harsh Asian jungle in a plot to blow up said title piece. Each movie, as I see them in my own head, would have their fair share of suspense, action, snappy dialogue, intriguing characters, and powerful narrative thrust. Each would have been a critical success, a popular smash, and an enduring classic. However, they are not two movies. They are one cohesive whole. And here the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

David Lean skillfully weaves these the two narrative threads together. Even with a 160 minute running time, Lean never wastes a moment. Everything leads to something else, and it is always entertaining. Lean is that rare director who has a firm handle on both the visual and narrative elements of his films. He reigns both in here with considerable skill, only showing what the audience needs to see, and what he wants them to see.

As in most war movies, madness is a theme that runs rampant. Each of the main characters has dipped into some sort of madness, which manifests itself in four unique and intriguing ways.

Guinness is Col. Nicholson, a by the book British officer. He carries around a copy of the Geneva Convention, and expects his Japanese captors, isolated for many months in the jungle, to adhere to them. Guinness' greatest work here is in portraying Nicholson's stubbornness in the face of grave danger, and his pride in a job well done. It could have been a showy role in the hands of a lesser actor, as there is a temptation to externalize Nicholson's crumble from sanity. Guinness is subtle beyond the call of duty (even in his physical portrayal; one moment has him, after a long stint imprisoned in an oven-like box, paraded in front of his men. Catch Nicholson trying to march with military precision on legs terrorized by atrophy. It is a heartbreaking, and heroic, moment).

Colonel Saito, played by Hayakawa, is a man caught in a most unenviable position. In the beginning, he appears to be holding all the cards. But as we soon see, he is as much a pawn as the prisoners he's captured, indebted as much to his superiors as to his honour of duty. The problem with the character of Colonel Saito, and really the only hole in the whole film, is that he is supposed to be a menacing character. But we never see him be menacing; we have to rely on the word of Commander Shears. A scene of him killing in cold blood would have gone a long way later on, when his transition to Guinness' subordinate would have been even more powerful.

Major Warden, played by Hawkins, comes late to the story, but has much to say about how the second half will play out. He too is controlled by a sense of British duty, but his madness exhibits itself in a less controlled way. Warden, who's spent most of his time playing war games in a tropical paradise of a base, expects his mission to be a walk in the park. The horrors he encounters (both physical and psychological) are unexpected and hit him much harder than the others. Hawkins, as both the English gentleman and the tormented soldier, does a fine job.

Holden plays probably the most intriguing character. His Commander Shears has lived with his madness the longest, and has developed an ironic anti-hero callus to shield himself from the horrors. We first see him digging graves for his fallen comrades, of which he is the last to survive. From there, his situation gets much worse. Shears adopts a mocking tone when confronting his superiors, parakeeting their catch phrases ("When you're done, there's always one more thing to do"; "Be happy in your work") to the point of ridiculing them. And even when he manages to escape the physical prison, he manages to get drawn back there against his will.

The prevailing madness of the film comes to a head in the end as Major Clipton, the camp's doctor and arguably the only character not afflicted by insanity up to this point (and probably my favourite character), has a Conrad-like epiphany. It's a moment that rivals Kurtz' "The horror! The horror!" from "Heart of Darkness" and "Kwai's" war-movie progeny "Apocalypse Now".

Even though many of its themes are psychological, it's no surprise why "Kwai" became both a popular and critical success. It has all the elements of a grand classic: an all-star cast, tight suspense, lush scenery, humour, drama, finely drawn characters, intense action, and well-scripted dialogue. And of course, there's the great whistling scene; nothing better than a bright melody to cut through the horrors of war. It's a charming little scene that both brings a smile to your face and warns of tough times ahead.