Madness indeed

Until "Saving Private Ryan" came out two years ago, "Bridge over the River Kwai" was certainly the best English-language film originally in color about World War II. It doesn't show the civilian suffering as well as "Schindler's List;" the only civilians seen here are attractive young women who have mysteriously escaped the ravages of the fighting. It doesn't show the effectiveness, ingenuity, and raw courage of the American infantry as well as "Saving Private Ryan," with only a single representative of those qualities (William Holden, the greatest American actor of his generation). It doesn't show the home front as well as "Cider House Rules" or "Hope and Glory," nor should it be faulted for focusing so intently on the soldiers themselves.

Right up until the end, you have to love the British colonel (Alec Guinness) who does the wrong thing for all the right reasons: determination to preserve his dignity, love of his men, and even a degree of self-doubt which he movingly confesses on the last day of work on the bridge over the River Kwai. Guinness outdoes himself here, and his portrayal started inspiring imitations starting with Lieutenant Chard in "Zulu" and continuing through the RAF rooster in "Chicken Run." The act of building the best bridge he and his men can create obscures the fact that it will be used by their hated enemy. Indeed, after he stares down his Japanese captor, ignoring the proferred tea except to drink to Colonel Saito's imminent demise, such a profound respect develops that the two armies seem to forget they are at war at all.

It falls to Holden's character, improbably returning to the camp he escaped from weeks earlier, to remind Guinness that there is a war on and he has materially assisted the enemy -- a realization he has only seconds to act on. The new ranking officer among the British prisoners, at the very end of the film, surveying the ruins of all his men had struggled for, cries out that this has surely been the fruit of madness, as if war were ever otherwise.