more on the fucking bridge on the river kwai

so i've realized that the part at the beginning when they allude cryptically, conspiratorially, to the brits's surrender, is the point on which the whole movie's founded. watching kwai is a 3 hour argument for the ludicrousness that the little fools depicted with japanese people could ever have captured the stoic, infinitely noble british soldiers. but there they are, POWs.

the drama of the movie, then, rests on the gradual role reversal. the brits can't help helping their pathetic captors to a point where their colonialist zeal, their compulsive need to bring civilization to the "natives," is tantamount to treason against their own soldiering.  but it doesn't matter in the end. the ultimate fact of western power crashes the schizophrenic party, and everyone's rightful position is restored.

it's a brilliantly assembled movie, remarkably taut for something so big and sprawling, and it's beautifully shot. it's also, you know, abominable.