Landslide winner of the 1958 Academy awards with a total of 7 Oscars – including best picture – “The Bridge on the River Kwai” is widely considered one of the greatest war films of all time. Directed by David Lean and based on the eponymous novel by French writer Pierre Boulle, it tells the fictional tale of British World War II prisoners in a Japanese camp in Burma. The prisoners are forced to build a bridge of great strategic significance, while, at the same time, the British Army has plans to destroy it.
Lieutenant Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness), the highest ranking officer among the prisoners, seems to be suffering from a bad case of Stockholm Syndrome, asking his men to do the best job they can in helping the enemy build a bridge that could be of major significance in Japan’s war against his own country. One of the prisoners manages to escape, and soon he is sent on a mission to blow up the bridge. Once Nicholson realizes that the British troops are trying to destroy the Japanese bridge which he so lovingly crafted and oversaw, he blows the whistle on his comrades which leads to their, as well as his own demise. Finally realizing what he has done, with the last ounces of his strength Lieutenant Colonel Nicholson falls on the detonator and it’s bye-bye bridge. The end.
Even though the plot is fictional, it is loosely based on the building of the infamous Burma-Siam railway, built by American, Dutch and Commonwealth troops imprisoned by The Japanese. Despite it’s critical success, it was condemned by many former POWs who felt that the film was anti-British, particularly the character of Lieutenant Colonel Nicholson.
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