This wartime adventure from David Lean is highlighted by a trio of fascinating performances and the characters they inhabit. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great story, too, based on actual events. Detractors like to point out the discrepancies, but I remind them this film was never intended to be a factual recounting or a documentary. “Inspired by” doesn’t mean historically accurate, so complaints in that regard are incidental at best. Alec Guinness, William Holden, and Sessue Hayakawa paint indelible portraits of three highly unusual soldiers who are compromised, proud, conflicted, and contradictory.

The initial plot brings them together at a 1943 Japanese prison camp in Burma. American Navy Commander Shears (Holden) has already experienced the mistreatment of captive soldiers overseen by Colonel Saito (Hayakawa), a dictator who doesn’t follow the rules set forth by the Geneva Convention. He routinely starves, beats, and tortures his prisoners to get what he wants. Saito meets his match when the latest British POWs arrive at the camp, whistling the famous “Colonel Bogey March“. The senior officer among them is Lieutenant Colonel Nicholson (Guinness), who insists on following regulations and protocol where war and anything else, for that matter, are concerned. Saito informs them they will be put to work building a railroad bridge across the River Kwai, connecting Bangkok to Rangoon. All available soldiers, including officers, are to perform this manual labor. When Nicholson points out the treaty violation of using officers in such a manner, Saito strikes him across the face in front of the others with Nicholson’s own paper copy of the rules. Thus begins a systematic protest, the resulting torture, and a locking of horns between the two men to see who will back down first.

Alec Guinness as Lieutenant Colonel Nicholson.

Shears seizes this distraction as an opportunity to escape with two British soldiers, despite a warning from Nicholson, who reminds his men they were ordered by their superiors to surrender. An escape could be perceived as disobeying orders, leading to a court-martial. They follow through with the plan, regardless, and although his fellow fugitives are killed during the initial flight, Shears makes it out alive, battling the odds and the elements to get to safety. Meanwhile, Nicholson struggles to survive his brutal torture at the camp, and Saito fights to maintain his honor and dignity and “save face,” a vital tradition in Japanese culture.

David Lean captures nature in his films like no other director, almost as another character contributing to the plot. Whether it’s the sun beating down on soldiers or a brutal blizzard in Doctor Zhivago or a windswept desert providing a surprise route, as with Lawrence of Arabia, nature plays a key role in Lean’s storytelling. This movie is no exception, particularly with the scenes involving Shears forging ahead on his own for any signs of civilization in the Burmese jungle.

Sessue Hayakawa as Colonel Saito.

As the story and conflict progress, all three main characters experience stunning revelations—even to themselves. When put to the test, they are not the men we think they are. Following a series of bungled attempts to build his bridge using slavery tactics, Saito ultimately caves in. He stops torturing the British officers and, as a last resort, puts them in managerial and administrative positions for his project, in keeping with the Geneva Convention. By doing so, he feels disgraced and dishonored. We see him in quieter moments, preparing to commit harakiri, an ancient, ritualistic suicide originally practiced by samurai warriors in order to die with honor rather than fall victim to their enemies.

What Saito doesn’t realize is that by permitting Nicholson to be his overseer, he now has a capable team in place that can build the best bridge possible. The brilliant Sessue Hayakawa, who first rose to major stardom as a romantic leading man in Hollywood during the silent era, goes through a complex journey from feared villain to failed warrior to compliant leader, finding respect and even trust for his prisoners by treating them with basic civility. He gains hope once more that, despite his doomed fate as a disgraced soldier, he can at least complete the improbable assignment of building this bridge on time.

The bridge on the River Kwai.

The bridge, on the other hand, becomes a symbol for Nicholson. At first, it’s a way for him to thumb his nose at Saito. He can show his captor just what “the British soldier” is capable of by further shaming him with triumph over adversity. We soon discover it’s far more than that. Nicholson’s obsession with perfection and purity clouds his vision. In fact, it drives him in the opposite direction. No longer able to grasp the bigger picture, he toils for his enemy, helping him with all available means. This bridge comes to represent a legacy for Nicholson, who is an aging officer past midlife crisis. He wants to leave some monumental achievement behind as a way of saying “I was here.” Alec Guinness deserved his Oscar for Best Actor. This is a complicated character with so many layers that peel back as the story goes on.

Meanwhile, Shears survives the jungle and makes it to a hospital in Ceylon. We soon learn that he’s been impersonating an officer from the moment he was first taken to the Japanese prison camp. Hoping for better treatment, he donned a dead officer’s uniform, a survival tactic that haunts him now. As a result, the American Navy turns him over to the British, who recruit him for their secret mission back into the Burmese jungle to blow up the bridge. Holden’s performance is outstanding as he transitions from cynical POW to gritty escapee to defiant war hero.

Even knowing the outcome, the final scenes in this film put me on the edge of my seat. That’s a testament to the fine performances, masterful direction, and epic production values of a movie most worthy of its award as Best Picture of 1957.

The Bridge on the River Kwai