Tuesday 29 May 2012

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050212/
Adventure, Drama, History
David Lean
André Morell, Jack Hawkins, William Holden, Alec Guinness, Sessue Hayakawa, James Donald, Geoffrey Horne, Peter Williams, John Boxer, Percy Herbert, Harold Goodwin, Ann Sears, Heihachirô Ôkawa, Keiichirô Katsumoto, M.R.B. Chakrabandhu
14 December 1957 (USA)
The film deals with the situation of British prisoners of war during World War II who are ordered to build a bridge to accommodate the Burma-Siam railway. Their instinct is to sabotage the bridge but, under the leadership of Colonel Nicholson, they are persuaded that the bridge should be constructed as a symbol of British morale, spirit and dignity in adverse circumstances. At first, the prisoners admire Nicholson when he bravely endures torture rather than compromise his principles for the benefit of the Japanese commandant Saito. He is an honorable but arrogant man, who is slowly revealed to be a deluded obsessive. He convinces himself that the bridge is a monument to British character, but actually is a monument to himself, and his insistence on its construction becomes a subtle form of collaboration with the enemy. Unknown to him, the Allies have sent a mission into the jungle, led by Warden and an American, Shears, to blow up the bridge.

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