The Bridge on the River Kwai Review
The Bridge on the River Kwai ranks as one of the greatest films of all time and arguably director David_Lean's best film. At the heart of the film is the performance of Alec_Guinness as the obsessively principled Colonel Nicholson. In a lesser film, his character might be simplified into a heroic martyr, but The Bridge on the River Kwai revels in its moral ambiguity: no significant character is either purely a hero or purely a villain. Filmed in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), the film features brutal prisoner-of-war work camps that are nonetheless considerably nicer than their historical counterparts, a good decision since it frees the audience to focus on the battle of wills, at first between Nicholson and Saito (Sessue_Hayakawa), later between Shears (William_Holden) and Warden (Jack_Hawkins). The film's closing line ("Madness... Madness") is among the best-known and most enigmatic closings in screen history. The film received seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor (Guinness). Richard Gilliam, Rovi
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