http://www.amazon.com/Bridge-Die-Bruecke-Bernhard-Wicki/dp/B0000646UM/sr=8-1/qid=1157957337/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-3987603-5827800?ie=UTF8&s=dvdThe Bridge (Die Bruecke) (1961)Starring: Folker Bohnet, Fritz Wepper Director: Bernhard Wicki
(21 customer reviews)
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Plot Summary
Genres: Drama, War
Tagline: They look for love in a world of violence!
Plot Outline In 1945, Germany is being overrun, and nobody is left to fight but teenagers.
Plot Synopsis: A group of German boys is ordered to protect a small bridge in their home village during the waning months of the second world war. Truckloads of defeated, cynical Wehrmacht soldiers flee the approaching American troops, but the boys, full of enthusiasm for the "blood and honor" Nazi ideology, stay to defend the useless bridge.
54 of 57 people found the following review helpful:
Jungvolk boys are tough and true....., February 25, 2003
Reviewer: M. G Watson "Miles Watson" (Bethesda, MD) - See all my reviews
This film is like a bomb with a very long fuse. It starts slowly, moves at a gentle, almost maddeningly slow pace, and then suddenly rips you to shreds.
Very few WWII movies are told from the German perspective. This one has the added, almost unique advantage of having been shot 10 years after the end of the war, when the wounds of the war had not even stopped bleeding. Although it is shot on B/W film, the violence is extremely graphic and no attempt is made to spare the audience the horrible result of bullets going through human bodies. In other words, if you are looking for cartoon violence, look elsewhere. This film was written by people who understood that bullets make holes.
"Die Brucke" is the story of six schoolchildren who are drafted into the Wehrmacht in the spring of 1945, given one day's training, and then thrown into battle when the war is hopelessly lost. A well-meaning officer and an equally human NCO conspire to have them detailed to a useless objective -- a small bridge in the little Bavarian town where they grew up and, only days before, played Cowboys & Indians. Unfortunately, the war does not pass them by, and the boys are too naive to understand that their cause is lost and that people who are shot to death do not get up and keep playing afterwards.
The young "soldiers" are alternately pathetic and frightening with their mixture of boyhood enthusiasm, decency, cruelty, and mischief. One minute they are playing pranks, the next cold-bloodly shooting down an American soldier who tries to get them to surrender. They grasp far too late that their elders don't care what happens to them, that they will receive no medals for their heroics, and that there are people in their own army who are bigger enemies than the Americans are.
The film may be too slow in the beginning for American audiences, but the payoff is well worth it. With an obviously limited budget and resources, director Wicke does a first-class (surprisingly graphic) job of pitting his kindergarten soldiers against American tanks and displaying the disgusting mayhem that follows. All war films are said to be anti-war films, but most American and British pics from the postwar period depict combat as a thrill-ride and the Germans as human targets who are equally sadistic and stupid. "Die Brucke" puts human faces on the men (often boys) in the Nazi uniform without making apologies for Nazism (this film rarely passes up a chance to scorn the Nazis who preached 'holding out to the last round' and then hopped the fastest train away from the battle). People who somehow found films like "Where Eagles Dare" entertaining should watch this DVD and then try to find the humor in slitting a teenage conscript's throat. I would recommend the film to anyone, but especially as an insight onto how things looked and felt on "the other side of the hill."
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