The Bridge on the River Kwai - The Oscar Project Part XXX

Growing up as a “Star Wars” kid I always enjoyed Sir Alec Guinness as Obi Wan Kenobi. But that was all that I knew him from. I knew that one his big movies from earlier in his career was “The Bridge On the River Kwai.” The movie was released in 1957 and is probably most remembered for two things, the whistling performed by the British army at the beginning of the movie and the doctor running away while screaming “Madness!” at the end of the movie. After seeing it, there are many more things to remember than that.

The film tells the story of British soldiers at a Japanese prison camp during the Second World War. According to the Geneva Convention officers cannot be forced to perform manual labor as a prisoner. The Japanese commander Saito doesn’t care about the convention and wants everyone to finish a bridge. From this point the movie diverts into two films. One involves an American that is impersonating an officer escaping from the camp and the second involves the construction of the bridge. Colonel Nicholson refuses to have his officers help on the bridge; this makes Saito torture Nicholson and his officers by sticking them in hot boxes. Eventually, after Saito determines they will not break and no progress is being made on the bridge, he lets the officers out to have them supervise their men as they work on the bridge. The officers bring the men together and focus them on building the bridge out of pride. While all of this happens the escapee, Shears, is enlisted by the British to destroy the bridge. Eventually on the day the bridge opens confrontation between the two sides occur and the bridge is destroyed.

When I say that this feels like two films that is because the bridge building half of the film is far superior to the mission to destroy the bridge. Both Alec Guinness as Nicholson and Sessue Hayakawa as Saito put in master classes in acting. By the end they had both created such realistic and relatable characters that I wanted the British to fail in blowing up the bridge. They made me want the Japanese to win, which is a tremendous feat. From a directing standpoint the film was great, the establishing shot of the British marching and whistling allowed me to instantly understand the soldiers and their unity. The movie was shot beautifully and the climax could have easily been bogged down in complication, since there is so much going on, but it was easy to follow. Director David Lean did a great job with this film.

Overall “The Bridge On the River Kwai” is a great movie that reminds me of movies like “The Hurt Locker” today. This movie definitely deserves 5 out of 5 stars.