The Bridge on the River Kwai on the one hand does a spectacular job of showing the messiness of wartime; there is a lot of moral gray and nobody really comes out on top. On the other hand it's yet another movie based on a novel that was "drawn from" real life but changed or fudged fact for the sake of narrative, so while it tells a compelling story it should not be counted as history and probably does a disservice to all involved.
This is the first time either of us has seen Alec Guinness in anything other than Star Wars, though we knew he was a renowned actor before that and Obi Wan Kenobi was just kind of a throwaway role for him. He won Best Actor for this role, and we very quickly concluded he does a great job playing a guy who has subtly gone mad. He plays a British officer who has been taken prisoner with his unit and they are being forced to build the titular bridge. He desperately tries to keep up his principles in the face of the hardships, which leads to him to willingly collaborate in helping the Japanese build the bridge in order to prove some point in his own mind about English superiority even though in reality they are helping the enemy. He also starts to see the bridge as his own personal legacy--again, blinding himself to the bigger picture to the point that when his allies show up to blow up the bridge he betrays them.
I don't think this movie would have gone down as well had it been made during or post-Vietnam; a war movie full of moral ambiguity about traipsing around the Southeast Asian jungle might have struck a few unhappily sensitive chords.
Watched: February 10, 2019
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