Suprisingly Timely

Rating: Null/10 (16 May 2004)

"The Bridge on the River Kwai" is one of those movies that is so good, so well-received, and so much a part of international culture that it is hard to comment on it.
Even if you've never seen it, you probably know the plot. At least you know enough to whistle the Colonel Bogie March, the movie's theme, which became an international hit after the movie was released.
You know the movie is about British prisoners in a Japanese prison camp during WW II. These prisoners build a bridge, and the interaction of the Brits and the Japanese, the lone American in the camp, and the bridge itself all become huge metaphors for ... well, watch the movie and then develop your own interpretation.
Does the movie really want us to believe that everything that has gone before is mere "madness," as one character pronounces? This viewer finds that hard to believe.
Alec Guinness plays British POW Colonel Nicholson, who directs construction of a bridge while he is a captive of the Japanese.
Guinness does his usual expert job. One thing I adore about Guinness, here, and also as Faisal in another Lean movie, "Lawrence of Arabia," is that he commands my last bit of attention without ever raising his voice, or doing anything especially dramatic. He isn't even especially good looking or sexy, unlike his fellow British actor Richard Burton.
Guinness, just, ever so quietly, commands the screen. The force is indeed with him, and never so much as here.
Again, with complete quiet, he conveys the role perfectly, but leaves the viewer with the impression that a good ninety percent of him is in reserve. And he also leaves the viewer with the impression that that ninety percent is completely inaccessible, something we'll never know.

The movie itself, especially in theremin-sounding soundtrack effects, and characters within the movie, suggest that Guinness / Nicholson may be over the edge, to put it mildly, and that the bridge of the title is an example of complete folly.
And yet this viewer could not help but strongly admire Nicholson. In short, things are more complex than they seem.
Certainly, Nicholson was more admirable to this viewer than William Holden as the American Shears. Here Holden repeats the role he had in Billy Wilder's "Stalag 17," the good-looking, good-timing American soldier who is heroic in spite of himself, and desires his own personal survival above all.
Jack Hawkins does his usual excellent job in a small role as a linguist/soldier. James Donald is touching as a sort of "Hawkeye Pierce" doctor who comments on the folly of war.
Sessue Hayakawa plays Col. Saito, the Japanese prison camp commander. Both the character and the actor were sold short by the script. Saito is never given a moment when we see more than a bumbling, sadistic, barbarian warrior. Compare this to the much more complex portryal of Amon Goeth by Ralph Fiennes in "Schindler's List."
Interestingly, in the silent era, Hayakawa played the "Asian Male as Sexual Threat," sort of comparable, though not as wildly popular, as Valentino as the Sheik. See 1915's "The Cheat," in which he attempts to buy sexual services from a white woman.
There is a scene in "Kwai" where Hayakawa / Saito breaks down into tears. Perhaps because of all the stereotyped roles he had to play?
"Kwai" is surprisingly timely in 2004, as the US confronts the abuse scandal of prisoners in Iraq. The Geneva Convention was one of the central plot features of "Kwai." It is also a central question for American political life in 2004.
Oh, how I wish they still made epics like this -- movies that really are eye candy -- Sri Lanka, where the film was shot, has never looked so lovely -- and yet cause the viewer to think and feel as well.