The Bridge On The River Kwai (1957)

Okay, look, hear me out. I know that I can't add much to the amount of praise already heaped upon The Bridge On The River Kwai. All I can do is agree that it's a masterpiece, praise the cast (especially Alec Guinness giving what I consider to be one of his very best performances), and remind everyone that it was based on a book by the same author who gave us Planet Of The Apes. So there you go. Job done.

Well . . . I guess I could say a bit more.

For those who have yet to experience the majesty of The Bridge On The River Kwai, it's essentially about a group of British POWs forced to build the titular bridge for their Japanese captors. Colonel Nicholson (Guinness) butts heads with Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa), who doesn't believe in abiding by the rules of the Geneva Convention, but he also believes in keeping his men busy, and giving them a sense of achievement. Meanwhile, a lone escapee (Shears, played by William Holden) is ordered to return with Major Warden (Jack Hawkins), and one or two others, on a mission to destroy the bridge.

I loved this movie the first time I saw it, and that love has never diminished with any subsequent viewings. It's a masterpiece. You can feel the heat and the dirt on the POWs, and the battle of wills between Nicholson and Saito is legendary. This puts human nature under a microscope while maintaining an epic backdrop, paying very careful attention to the world-renowned stiff upper lip that seems to be a vital component of the British army. The screenplay by Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson is wonderful, Michael Arnold's score equally so (even if it is incorporating the very familiar "Colonel Bogey March), and Jack Hildyard's cinematography is, while not on a par with the visuals delivered when Freddie Young was working with director David Lean, at least as lush and expansive as you could hope for. Especially in the astounding final sequence.

If you haven't seen this already then you should really make time for it ASAP. There's a decent smattering of humour throughout (particularly in the scenes involving Holden trying to enjoy his freedom, but also in the wry exchanges between Guinness and Hayakawa), there's not one mis-step in the lead performances, and the 161-minute runtime moves by far quicker than expected.  

You should also watch many other Lean movies though, and this is what prompted me to take the plunge and review The Bridge On The River Kwai here. Feel free to argue the point, but I find myself worrying that Lean seems to be at risk of being forgotten nowadays. People will still take time to discuss the Ealing films, there's always room for Powell & Pressburger to be included in conversations, and we've seen a very talented crop of British directors gain prominence and platitudes throughout the past few decades, but Lean seems to have fallen slightly out of fashion. Perhaps it's the epic runtimes of his most well-known movies. Perhaps it's the fact that they're not being put front and centre on any of the major streaming platforms (let's face it, Netflix is as likely to promote Lawrence Of Arabia as it is to ask you to turn your phone off while you watch their content). Whatever the reason, or maybe it's just me missing/forgetting some obvious celebrations of his work, Lean deserves his flowers. And he may as well get them for The Bridge On The River Kwai as for anything else he did. It's glorious cinema.

10/10

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