Sun-Drenched Masterpiece that even Bill Holden can't ruin

Rating: 9/10 (11 November 2007)

You can enjoy "Bridge on the River Kwai" with the sound off. Every image is magnificently composed, although fans of current thrillers that create atmosphere through darkness, claustrophobia and quick-cut editing will take some time getting used to Lean's technique of building tension with long, brilliantly lit tracking shots. (Their patience will be rewarded: there is a mesmerizing sequence toward the end of a character's perspective that is all the more remarkable for being two tiny figures in a landscape.) There are some overly cinematic, artsy touches, like the incessant panning shots of screeching vampire bats during a Japanese ambush, that would be annoying if they didn't look so cool. And bridges are the most hackneyed analogy in screen (and perhaps all) history, but this time, well, it just works.
But when you do pump up the volume, prepare to marvel at Alec Guinness' fantastically complicated performance as a rigid, proper British colonel engaged in a battle of wills with the sadistic Japanese officer played by the gifted (and now forgotten) Sessue Hayakawa. Trapped in an unfenced, open-air prison camp that feels as confined as Alcatraz thanks to Lean's capacity for manipulating light, movement and sound, Guinness offers Col. Nicholson as a character of Shakespearean complexity: is this man mad? Suicidal? How can he be so unaware of his collaboration with the enemy -- or is he? (I couldn't figure it out until the very end.) His insistence on forcing his opponent, Col. Haito, to follow the Geneva conventions seems a bit quaint nowadays, but no matter, the real issue is pride -- Guinness' stiff-backed but wobbly-legged walk across the prison camp to Col. Haito's headquarters is more articulate than most monologues. (You also wonder how a classically trained stage actor like Guinness made it look so convincing. Robert DeNiro probably would have had the key grip break his calves.) But unfortunately, "Kwai" loses some momentum and focus when it leaves the prison camp and follows cynical, ne'er-do-well ladies' man William Holden around Southeast Asia. Holden's character is, as always, an anti-hero and would be interesting to watch in pretty much any other movie. However, compared to Guinness' ferocious stoicism, Hayakawa's nuanced savagery and the primal battle for supremacy in the prison camp, poor Bill's journey from selfish survivor to noble hero feels a little corny. His character is necessary to make the point that both American improvisation and audacity and British discipline and duty were necessary to win WWII, and even then at great cost. But you can't help but wish that Humphrey Bogart were a couple of decades younger and, well, still alive to make this film -- his presence could have elevated "Kwai" to one of the three or four best films ever made. As is, it's a mere masterpiece.