classic POW drama

Rating: 9/10 (26 June 2008)

As with most war films utilizing a POW camp as the primary setting made prior to say, the 1970's, 'The Bridge on the River Kwai' leaves most viewers to speculate that conditions were in all likelihood many times more brutal than portrayed on the screen. Surely the Japanese had more devious methods of torture than simply having officers stand all day in the hot sun, or placing their commander in solitary confinement, as miserable as either of those situations may have been. And it is doubtful the Japanese commandant would have been talked out of shooting several prisoners simply because it is pointed out to him there might be an inquiry into the matter. Those matters aside, 'The Bridge on the River Kwai' is very compelling and believable, the story of a large group of British soldiers led by Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness), and one American, Commander Shears (William Holden), being held in a desolate Japanese prison camp in southern Burma during WW2. At the center of the story is a battle of wills between Nicholson and the Japanese camp commander Saito (Sessue Hayakawa). Nicholson's defiance is genuine, but it is done in that peculiarly quirky British fashion which seems, especially in the film's latter sections, exaggerated to an almost unfathomable degree. When Nicholson finally agrees to build the bridge across the Kwai River that Saito wants built, he not only tackles the project with enthusiasm, he determines to build a better bridge than the Japanese themselves would have built. He doesn't regard what he's doing as traitorous; rather, he sees it as a way to keep his men busy and the bridge itself as a monument to their hard work while in captivity. One very interesting sidebar in the film is the contrast between Nicholson and Shears, and by implication, the British and American approach to war and life in captivity. Nicholson lives by certain codes and traditions and would rather die than violate them, even if they come to seem inexplicable in their practical results. Shears, on the other hand, is crafty and resourceful and doesn't give a damn about rules or regulations. He routinely bribes the guards to get out of performing physical labor. To him, the ends justify the means every time. He regards Nicholson and the other British officers as fools, and they regard him as a crazy American, gone slightly off his rocker from being a prisoner so long. Guinness gives one of his finest performances and deservedly won an Oscar (as did the movie itself, and the director, David Lean). The miserable conditions of the camp, and particularly the 'box' where Nicholson spends his solitary confinement, are very realistically presented; the unrelenting jungle heat is palpable. The characterizations are such that we are in sympathy with Colonel Nicholson, though we suspect he isn't completely rational, just as we come to dislike the character of Shears, even as we realize he is doing the right thing in blowing up the bridge. 'The Bridge on the River Kwai' is rightly regarded as a classic; I would say it is one of the ten best war movies ever made.