Bridge On The River Kwai

I understand why Alec Guinness was upset about the Obi-Wan thing

Bridge On The River Kwai is a 1957 film based on a book of the same name. It follows WW2 prisoners of war in Japanese occupied Thailand.

Colonel Nicholson (Sir Alec Guinness) is a stickler for the rules of war and buts heads against his and his men’s captor, Colonel Saito. (Sessue Hayakawa)

Basically, Sir Alec has a bad attitude and thinks that his officers shouldn’t work alongside the rest of the men as it’s not the proper thing to do according to, let me check my notes here, the Geneva Convention?? Okay, maybe Sir Alec has a point.

So, Nicholson is so stubborn that eventually Saito gives in, as he will have to kill himself if the bridge is not complete, and not only releases Guinness from the hot box, but puts him and his officers in charge of construction of the titular bridge.

During all this there’s an American solider, the only one with any common sense, named Sears, played by William Holden who makes a daring escape and ends up floating out to sea where he’s rescued by some limies.

The British officers with whom he is staying blackmail him into help an expedition to find and destroy the titular bridge.

They do so but, basically everybody dies including a young Canadian guy that doesn’t deserve it at all and it’s all quite sad.

The last words of the film, uttered by the medical officer who I forget to mention until now, are “Madness. Madness.”

Then there are some shots of some birds for some reason.

Okay. Let’s get into it!

It’s a fantastic classic film with classic film themes of man v self, man v society, man v God (or morals in this case) and man v nature.

The themes of man v man with Nicholson and Saito are obvious and mostly plot. But, the real meat of the picture is that of man v self. Both Nicholson and Saito are struggling with their own ego and ultimately die because of it. But, wrapped up in that is also a struggle against social pressures and rules. Saito has the pressure of literal death in the form of Seppuku or Hara-Kiri and Nicholson has it in the form of…a bit of paper.

What makes this movie so compelling is you can empathize with every character put to screen. Their motivations are clear and their reasoning sound, which makes it all the more powerful when Saito loses the battle; you feel the joy with Nicholson and the shame with Saito.

Here’s a phenomenal scene from the film where Nicholson and Saito go toe to toe. It’s rare to see scenes like this in terms of pure tension, acting, and shot composition.

Sir Alec Guinness has a banger of a line in the scene as well which is:

Saito: If the bridge is not built in time, I’ll have to kill myself. What would you do if you were me?

Nicholson: I suppose if I were you, I’d have to kill myself.

Ice-cold and hilarious in terms of timing an delivery, which bring me to my next point.

Guinness is incredible in this picture and now I full understand why he was so upset that people only knew him from Star Wars. He had a wonderful, lifetime spanning career, and when his obituary came out it was “Obi-Wan Kenobi has died.” I’d be upset, too. I intend on making an effort to watch more films with him in it.

Everyone’s acting in this film is excellent. Hayakawa brings empathy to a contemptible villain, Holden brings life and light to a cold hearted cynic, and Guiness brings a beautiful dignity to a stubborn and unlikable man.

We don’t much make movies like this anymore, by which I mean, there’s so much night for day in this picture. If you don’t know what night for day is, it’s the process of changing the color and exposure of a photograph to make something that was bright blue and darker to mimic dusk or nighttime. It was used heaps back before cameras could shoot in the dark well. If you were to see it now, it would be laughable.

But, that’s not all there are several beautiful wide shots in scenes where more than one character is conversing. I’m my opinion modern movies use too much of what’s known as coverage, meaning cutting back and forth between two character during a dialogue scene. Using coverage is a great way to quickly shoot a scene but is also a great way to have an audience be bored as hell watching your film.

This film is also so slowly paced compared to modern movies. Which makes it all the more effective when the bridge is blown up and the character in peril. I was literally on the edge of my seat watching the final 20 minutes of the film, not knowing if they’re going to pull it off and if so, how.

World War Two is a trick bit of business, eh? This film has an incredibly British perspective of the war; to the point of making American’s the butt of a few jokes throughout the picture. The themes of rules and dignity in the face of terrible trials, while compelling, is certainly a British perspective.

An American version of this film would be called The Great Escape and is also an absolute boss movie.

The only negative part of my viewing of this film is the fact that I had to watch it on an iPad. I desperately want to see it in a cinema where it belongs.

I’ll be darned if I don’t miss my projector back in the states.

The runtime is 161 minutes.