Emotional, exhilarating and horrific - a real "man's inhumanity to man" story.

Rating: 8/10 (8 December 2019)

If ever there was a film that combined magnificent cinematography, a memorable score and performances as much charged with mental as physical fortitude, then this has to be it. Right from the outset we get a true, deep, sensation of the atrocities carried out on prisoners of war by the Occupying Japanese forces as they are treated like little more than slaves building the Bangkok-Rangoon railway. Alec Guinness is wonderful as the stiff, principled CO determined to try and uphold some semblance of law and decency in the face of this oppression, as he leads his men on a "strike". Sessue Hayakawa portrays the ruthless camp commander "Colonel Saito" in as close to an actually "brutal" - both physical and psychological - way as I've ever seen anyone do on screen and the two men engage in the ultimate battle of wills. I found the William Holden storyline less engaging, though his mission, ultimately, helps us to focus on just how corrupted - both mentally and physically - Guinness has become in his determination to complete his task. David Lean's version of this Pierre Boulle novel is a truly timeless feat of cinema.