THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI

Nominated for 8 Oscar awards, The Bridge On The River Kwai would end up winning 7 statues at the 1958 Oscar ceremonies, including the top honor of Best Picture. Other Oscars were awarded for Best Director, Best Lead Actor, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Music Score.

This movie has everything a great motion picture should. From a visual perspective, the cinematography more than deserved the Oscar award. It is stunning as it captures both the wild and the beauty of the region (The story takes place in Burma but was filmed in Sri Lanka). The camera takes full advantage of every vantage point there is to use, from aerial views to underwater and everywhere in between. Composer Malcolm Arnold uses a score that continually builds from beginning to end but then will disappear completely letting the natural sounds of the jungle and the water take center stage. One standout scene where this is employed is when the covert team of commandos slowly, slowly moves up the river in complete silence, pushing a small, camouflaged float containing an explosive. This is just one scene from what is truly a magnificent 161-minute experience.

Alec Guiness (Best Lead Actor) is fantastic as Col. Nicholson, a British military leader who finds himself and his entire troop being held as Prisoners of War under the Japanese commandant Col. Saito. Saito is portrayed to incompetent perfection by Sessue Hayakawa. Hayakawa was the one Oscar nomination (Best Supporting Male Actor) that did not win… but he was certainly worthy of it. Col Saito, under the rules of the Geneva Convention, utilizes this camp of POW’s as labor to build a railway bridge he is under pressure from his superior to complete. As this is playing out, the British Military has finagled United States military man Major Shears (William Holden) to join them as they attempt to infiltrate this POW area and destroy the bridge being developed. Shears is a reluctant participant, but a necessary one for Britain, because he had escaped from the same POW camp weeks earlier.

Like Braveheart, another film I recently watched, this movie contains portrayals of several real-life people, but the story itself is completely manufactured in order to tell a great story… not history. And the story juxtaposes the military commitment and duty of three very different people with their very different moral compasses. In the end, it all turns out to be “Madness! Madness!”