The violence begins as a skeletal soldier digs his own grave and is then machine-gunned into oblivion while the entire camp is forced to watch. The Japanese Major laughs and rebukes the British prisoners; this is a man without heart or conscience. He is opposed by a British Major who knows the score (and it’s not in their favor) and motivates his men to survive day by day, hour by hour, to do their duty in order to live…because the alternative is to die at the hands of savages.
Here in this dank sepulcher of razor wire choked by the endless jungle, faith becomes as useless as coded verse, war’s hellish parable. Make no mistake, this is a tale told from one perspective, the Japanese relegated to caricature and the captives portrayed as heroic though still humanly fallible. David Lean’s epic BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI is a drama of men playing at war with its morality firmly displayed on a tattered sleeve; Val Guest’s film depicts desiccated and shriveled men refusing to die who have realized that war is no game.
Final Grade: (B)
