The Bridge on the River Kwai
Dir: David Lean
1957
**
The Bridge on the River Kwai is a tough one for me to review. The reason I've never watched it before is because of my Grandfather. He was a POW and worked on the Burma-Siam railway which included bridges which would have crossed the River Kwai. He took my father and Uncle to see this film when it was released. My father told me the story that he was very insistent that they see the film so that they could see what he went through - having never spoken of the war since his return. After seeing the film he was so outraged, disappointed and ultimately let down, he never spoke of the war again until the day he died, which after years of torture, over-work and starvation, was at a very young age. My grandfather took umbrage to the mixture of fact and fiction. Made only 15 years after the actual events and seeing how twisted and false he, his fellow prisoners and officers were represented was an insult to him. Years ago I decided to look into my family history and I researched him, his regiment and all I could regarding his time as a POW. A lot of what I found I didn't even pass onto my father, needless to say the info I found was not of a pleasant time. Why then they decided to use real people's names but in different circumstances is beyond me. Fiction is fiction and fact is fact, mixing the two is a very dangerous thing, judging by many of the reviews I read, many don't realise this film is fiction and did not happen. The film is well acted and looks beautiful but ultimately is an insult to the memory of the men on both sides, that were there. I don't care if it's Mel Gibson, Disney or the great David Lean, it's not right and I don't like it. Change the men's names and tweak it here and there and I would have liked this film just as much as everyone else but as it is I find it immoral and disrespectful and historically dangerous in its neglect of the truth. Does it really matter? Yes, in this circumstance it most certainly does! Why change a perfectly interesting part of history anyway, the madness, the madness indeed. One star for the acting and one star for the aesthetics, that's all I can give.