"Greatness!" "Greatness!" ...

Rating: 10/10 (13 May 2011)

I believe the purpose of a good war movie is less to preach or invite to take sides, than to depict war through the devastating effects it operates on sane conscious minds, by making or avoiding it. It's not a hazard that the best movies depicted war as a complex state of mind, exhilarating then alienating.
David Lean's extraordinary merit is to make a film of a war won by the Allies, with no victory at the end, except of cinematic intelligence. Like "Apocalypse Now", "All Quite on the Western Front" or "Das Boot", the best war movies deal more generally with defeats, "Saving Private Ryan" being a relevant counter-example. "The Bridge on the River Kwai" depicts another vision of victory through Colonel Nicholson, the perfect embodiment of the manic attachment to principles.
Colonel Nicholson, (Alec Guinness) leads the troop of British prisoners to the camp of Colonel Saito, (Sessue Hawakaya). The soldiers' entrance, whistling the "Colonel Bogey March" tune is one of the film's most defining moments but interestingly misleading since this is their only 'shining' moment. The rest of the film, we see them idly building the bridge, then more seriously under Nicholson's commandment. We also see them having fun the last night before they leave. This is not supposed to portray the real conditions of Japanese PoW camps, but cinematically, the soldiers are Colonel Nicholson's foil. He's the story's heart, through his psychological conflict with Colonel Saito.
War always reveals dualities, not dual disorders like in psychological thrillers but two visions incarnated by antagonistic characters: Willard vs. Kurtz in "Apocalypse Now", Barnes vs. Elias in "Platoon" and here, Nicholson vs. Saito. Quite a practical conflict, it concerns Saito's decision to make the officers build the bridge for the railway that would link between Bangkok and Saigon. This bridge is Saito's mission, his honor and his life depend on it. As an adept of Bushido, Saito wouldn't let failure humiliate him. The officers shall build the bridge because it's their dishonor, which brought the soldiers to the POW camp. But while Nicholson accepts the defeat and the soldiers' obligation to build the bridge, he refuses to participate to the effort invoking Geneva's conventions. Saito whips Nicholson with the book, starting the psychological battle that would lead to one of the most iconic cinematic climaxes.
Nicholson is so attached to his principles he would rather die in the 'Oven', the 'punishment' box standing to the sun not to obey to Saito's personal vision. This is the point, Nicholson, a man of principles, surrendered because it was a military order. But his respectable posture progressively flirts with insanity when it puts his men's lives at stakes. In a particularly memorable scene after Major Clipton, the doctor, meets Nicholson in the oven, the colonel's stubbornness makes him wonder, under a hellish sun, which of Saito or Nicholson is madder  and unconsciously, where this madness will lead to.
To a personal victory for Nicholson, first. Saito, realizing the incompetence of his engineers, accepts Nicholson's conditions and handles this defeat by crying, privately. This is a personal defeat and his childish reaction illustrates how some military decisions, right or wrong, can be driven by personal issues. Saito's defeat is personal; Nicholson's victory is of the British Army, of 'civilization'. And the way Nicholson handles the construction of the bridge illustrates an integrity almost too zealous for his men and for Major Clipton. For Nicholson, it's a matter of keeping his men in shape, and proving the value of his Army for the posterity. Nicholson's project became personal, and his inflexibility automatically pointless.
This rigidity is mocked by another major character of the film, no pun intended, Shears (William Holden) though I must admit, I wasn't too confident with his wisecracking cynicism in the first act, I preferred the wiser 'Shears' during the mission with the Major Warden, blowing up the titular bridge. Shears who pretended to be an officer, is blackmailed in order to accomplish this mission, he's technically a hero for having escaped Saito's PoW but his status of a fraud isn't the best ticket for the Navy Cross. He must come back to the camp; we understand that his odds to survive again will be pretty low.
But I didn't see that ending coming. I said iconic climax, I should have said ironic. More than a war movie, it's all about personal views, and how two opposite sides can co-work to create something. Saito and Nicholson built the bridge with an involvement so personal their complicity is almost romantic in the setting sun scene, where each one contemplates his accomplishment, Saito, who renounced to his dreams for the Army, Nicholson who dedicated his life for it. Ironically, their last collaboration would be to prevent the bridge from exploding.
And in one of the most suspenseful climactic sequences ever, Nicholson, moved by a paternal instinct, tries to save the bridge, causing the death of the allied soldiers. And while the train of Japanese VIP is coming, Nicholson realizes how blinded by his own pride he was in a last flash of realization incarnated by the unforgettable line "What have I done!" His last heroic deed would be to die and fall on the detonator, destroying the bridge, the train, and the last ounces of remaining sanity, provoking the immediate reaction of Clipton : "Madness! Madness!"
These last lines perfectly summarize the absurdity of war driven by alienation. The chaotic ending is like an implacable victory of fate which decided that each side is equally alienated in this waste. The whole film from the script to its superb climax that made the film for me, is quite cynical in its approach, and that's why I can forgive the music for the ending credits, where I had expected a big silence, like a 'No comment' reaction to an unbelievable madness But as Major Warden (Jack Hawkins) said: "There's always the unexpected, isn't there?"