Just a couple of years before he fully redefined the cinematic epic with his 1962 World War I biopic Lawrence of Arabia, David Lean (along with producer Sam Spiegel) offered audiences another epic, this one set in the Pacific theater of World War II. His 1958 film Bridge on the River Kwai could have been a proto-Great Escape, a movie about daring men breaking out of their harsh conditions. The story, about British and American prisoners of war in a Japanese camp, would seem to demand it, and a decent chunk of the movie does revel in some heroic moments of adventure. But at its best, it’s something much stranger — a story of obsession, corruption, and even British supremacist thought. Much like Lawrence of Arabia, it sits in the uneasy space between lionizing the hypothetical heroes and examining them with more psychological depth.
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