A travesty

cfewente: " ... the novel (a fiction by definition) and the picture (based on the novel) are both fiction ... "

This ^^^^^

The film is NOT a documentary. The film (and the novel it is based on) are fiction.

... there has been technological advancement, but how little man himself has changed.

That's not the point. The suffering of the Japanese POW's was very real, and this fictional story minimizes it. That's the point.

So do a film about Bataan that depicts the Japs as honorable soldiers?

All these films about the Germans being assholes to Jews but the Japs get a pass? Why?

I understand a film about atrocities over a decade after the war might not go down well. People want to move on but it is a flaw in the film showing the Japs acting like Brits or Americans. They were not.

spencer,

Fiction is after a different kind of truth than fact. History deals in that which "was", and fiction deals in that which "may" have been or may be. Both lessons are valuable. The telling of one does not obliterate the telling of another. TBOTRK is a great motion picture, imo, and is not intended as an historical essay. The documentaries I've seen are great, too, but they don't purport to inform me about the fears and regrets of a single aging man responsible for the lives of hundreds of other men. Remember, too, the special power of fiction is that it deals with events "unique" in life -- the unexpected, the irony (with which TBOTRK is loaded!)and, thus, how the events depicted may parallel other events entirely unrelated historically.

There is no "maybe" about this commander. I and others have explained the brutal mistreatment that characterized Japanese conduct toward all prisoners, whom they considered cowards. Their entire conduct in the war was beyond belief, which makes Obama's Hiroshima apology so despicable. Did you know they slaughtered an estimated ten million Chinese civilians, dropped bubonic plague in village wells and dropped anthrax bombs on the civilian populace, amongst other atrocities.

The scene near the end when the prisoners are enjoying a movie is ridiculous. Do you think Auschwitz prisoners (same conditions) watched movies?

I agree, but it does bring great irony to the final scene.

😎

No one can criticize the survivors of those camps for complaining about any film's minimizing the horrors of what they experienced. They are exempt. One can only explain (again!) that this film is not a documentary and wasn't intended to be seen as such. It is an entertainment with themes extending far beyond those which can be provided through simple historical exposition.

Additionally, the events in this film are pretty damn "cruel" as they are depicted, or contemplated by the characters -- hot-boxes, summary executions, over-work, beatings, poor rations and starvation, etc. If the producers had attempted to graphically show the actual consequences to prisoners in SE Asia at the time, the film would never have been distributed, not to mention even been made. Nicholson's and Saito's characters are certainly unique, which is what makes TBOTRK great fiction. And, what opens the door to many wider questions about human nature than a simple look at what took place factually at one time and in one place can do.

In the mid-fifties, "big" budget films had to appeal to "big" audiences or they would have lost "big" money. Grandpa, grandma and the kids would not have gone at all. Adults then came home from work, ate a quick meal, and headed to the theatre to get away from their troubles -- not to sit down for 2+ hours and be grossed-out. The latter, it seems to me, is the stuff that's designed for today's "kiddies" who seem to revel in graphic visuals. Times have changed. Be it for good or ill remains problematic, to be sure.

You summed up in one word the reason this film is not a travesty.

A bridge really was built over the River Kwai, so some people mistakenly take it as a historical reference point. But all the names and events are made up, so I don't know why people say they were inspired by, or twist, real life.

If Bridge on the River Kwai is a travesty, so is Life is Beautiful. But neither film is meant to show reality. I doubt any child came through the camps unscathed, innocence in tact, but LIB uses that historical setting to explore aspects of the human spirit.

BOTRK similarly uses a historical setting to explore sticking to principles (and yes - when does it become madness?), pluckiness, outwitting your enemy through reverse psychology, cowardice.

There is another one-word answer to some of the criticisms expressed in previous posts:

Irony.

"That pretty much all of history is built upon genocide."

Never heard a bigger crock in all my life!