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11/28/2013

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) - One of the greats




An original poster for David Lean's The Bridge on the River Kwai

QUICK REVIEW:

A large group of British war prisoners in Japanese-occupied Burma in 1942 get the assignment to build a bridge for the railway. The British major in charge puts all his pride into the project, which is to symbolize the unparalleled craftsmanship and unbreakable will of the British, he announces, while other allies are on a deadly sabotage mission through the hostile jungle towards the self same bridge.
Kwai is an unequalled masterpiece in the suspense-based war movie genre. It is inspired by facts, but is for the most part fiction, as the real life parallel, the Burma-Siam railway, was in fact much more terrible and deadly than the events depicted in the film. (13,000 PoW's and between 80,000-100,000 civilians died as a result of the project.)
The film has some of the most exciting suspense in all of cinema, and yet most of this epic relies on unforgettable, insightful character studies: There's the pragmatist doctor, who sees only pointlessness in the trials of the war; the zealous major, who makes it a matter of personal spite and principal to prove the Japanese inferior to the British. And the Japanese colonel Saito, who buds heads with the Brit and follows his own culture's codes of conduct.
Alec Guiness (Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)) deservedly won an Oscar, his career's only, for his portrayal of Major Nicholson, whose rigid mind and jungle fever takes him to the blinded edge of sanity.

Alec Guinness' portrayal of human spite and near-madness in The Bridge on the River Kwai is fascinating and outstanding

Sessue Hayakawa (The Geisha Boy (1958)) was also nominated for his part as Saito. The two's scenes together are some of the film's best. Highly sophisticated, intense and alive.
In other supporting roles, Jack Hawkins and William Holden are enjoyable. The film is also unusual in that it is almost entirely bereft of women.
The Bridge on the River Kwai is one of the best war films of all time, an eminent epic, and has been restored beautifully. It is a must watch for every movie-lover, end especially for the war-interested.
Its great British director David Lean (Lawrence of Arabia (1962)) continuously fought his British cast, and Guiness in particular, during the filming, as Guiness wanted to make Nicholson more sympathetic and thought that the film was anti-British. For Lean, this wasn't the case, but he admitted explicitly to being tired of his countrymen on set: He is quoted for saying after shooting a particularly gruelling scene with Guiness: "Now you can all fuck off and go home, you English actors. Thank God that I'm starting work tomorrow with an American actor [William Holden]."
Lean almost drowned on Kwai, which was filmed almost entirely in Sri Lanka, when he was swept away in a river current during filming, and was rescued by actor Geoffrey Horne.
The film, - Lean's greatest in my opinion, - won 7 out of 8 Oscar nominations, among others for Best Picture and Best Director.
The writing Oscar wrongfully went solely to French writer Pierre Boulle (Planet of the Apes (1968)), whose book the script was based on, and who didn't speak or write English, because the 'real' scriptwriters, Michael Wilson and Carl Foreman, were blacklisted by Hollywood due to the McCarthy witch-hunt still active at the time. They were recognized with Oscars and credit inductions in 1984, but both had sadly died by then.

Remember the magic of Kwai and listen to the infamous Colonel Bogey March in the trailer here

Budget: 3 mil. $
Box office: 33.3 mil. (US only)
= Enormously successful (and highest grossing film of 1958)

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