The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

Imagine the word "epic" and, at least in the world of exceptional cinema, only a few names spring immediately to mind. Atop that list must be Director David Lean, a British filmmaker with some of the 20th century's finest pictures to his credit. Lawrence of Arabia. Doctor Zhivago. A Passage to India. The Bridge on the River Kwai. That's about as formidable a foursome as there ever was, every one of them an undeniable classic of story, scope, production, and movie magic. The Bridge on the River Kwai is one of Lean's most commercially, critically, and aesthetically complete pictures. It's a rare film that manages rousing success with its audience, almost universal acclaim from critics, and tells a story centered on the human condition rather than the typically wartime run-and-gun elements that defined most World War II pictures of the era. With Kwai, Lean defies all cinematic preconceptions with a wartime film that's not necessarily about a war itself but rather obsession, pride, and duty, whether it's the obsession of victory, the pride in oneself, or the duty to country or a cause. The Bridge on the River Kwai is a film that tells three distinct stories, the first a battle of wits, the second an adventuresome mission into enemy territory, and the third the tale of a man who becomes lost in his own pride, unable to see anything but the work directly in front of him. Each story comments on the human condition at several levels, not the least of which is summed up at film's end with the repetitious cry of "madness! madness!" that perfectly encapsulates not only the destructive force of war but what is often man's own inability to see the greater consequences of his actions, consequences that differ for each main character but nevertheless end with the same tragic, maddening results.

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