Winner of 7 Academy Awards...

Rating: 9/10 (25 December 1999)

David Lean's "The Bridge on the River Kwai" like Jean Renoir's "Grand Illusion" is an anti-heroic war film, set in a prisoner of war camp environment... But there, the point of resemblance came to an end...
"The Bridge on the River Kwai" is an adventure film in which the nature of World War II is explored... And if in "Grand Illusion" the characters were described by a great artist who treasures their common humanity, in "The Bridge on the River Kwai" they are forced to carry out their destinies by an officer who cannot bear to see his bridge blown up...
Escape is almost impossible from the Japanese camp located near the Kwai River in Burma... The prisoners are badly treated by cruel guards... The camp commander is a rigid psychopath... Conditions are hard to bear... Psychological state of the war British prisoners in constant alteration...
Into the presumptuous situation comes Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness in a fascinating performance), a strict, serene, dedicated British Officer, deeply concerned for the welfare of his men...
Nicholson is under severe pressure from the stubborn Japanese Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa) for insisting on his attachment to the Geneva convention and refusing to allow his officers to be used on the construction of the strategic bridge...
Nichilson survives the oppressive punishment imposed on him, but his obsession has risen to near-madness... He agrees to help the Japanese build their bridge, and in his determination to find victory in defeat, he ignores that the bridge, which he insists must be a 'proper bridge,' will serve the Japanese objectives against the British troops...
In addition to the powerful rules of a prison camp picture, captors against captives and an interesting moral respect to a military code, a third element, in the story, is introduced: a small commando team led by Major Warden (Jack Hawkins) and an American sailor (William Holden) whose mission is to destroy the strategic bridge..
The film leads swiftly to a suspenseful climax: a Japanese train and a Commando force directed to a same goal, the Brige of the River Kwai...
Each character, in the motion picture, has a valid reason for what he is doing, and each elaborates a relationship to the bridge revealed to be obsession and insane...
"The Bridge on the River Kwai" hits with 'war' in a compelling logic of events, the indulgence of self-destruction.
With a great visual beauty and terrific whistling tune March, "The Bridge on the River Kwai" is a great dramatic entertainment of the wills of men...