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The Bridge

The Bridge

(Die Brücke)

Bernhard Wicki

  • 1959
  • 1h43mn
  • Original version with French subtitles
  • Black and white
Barely mobilized, a group of young Germans is ordered to protect a small bridge in their home village, one the Wehrmacht itself plans to destroy. Driven by their idealism and patriotism, they will defend this patch of stone at all costs.
This adaptation of the autobiographical pacifist novel by Gregor Dorfmeister, inspired by a forgotten historical fact, is considered to be the first film from Germany to depict and denounce the war. Perhaps only in Russian Elem Klimov’s Come and See, is the absurdity of war so palpable, with its sacrificed adolescents, its children playing at war as if in kindergarten, already swamped by nazi ideology by principle. After getting us to care for them in their little village, Wicki captures their smiles on their first kill, and their terror when they die.

Adilkhan Yerzhanov

The Bridge influenced not only Come and See but the war genre as a whole.
With extreme naturalism—no music, no pathos—Bernhard Wicki tells the story of a group of 16-year-old boys sent to defend the Führer's bridge.
A bridge that no one needs. And over the course of the film, on this bridge, the very foundations of totalitarian patriotism, propaganda, ideology, and militarism are shattered. The suspense is overwhelming; the directing, superb.
The tanks are made of wood, yet more convincing than in other films.
The battles are realistic and psychologically charged.
Lighting, filtered through smoke, creates a ghostly atmosphere.
The night retreat scene is a masterclass in cinematographic lighting.
And then, during an English class, Shakespeare's words sound profoundly different:

Let night's black mantle cover me,
But if you love me not, then let them seize me!
Kill me—they'd do better,
Than let me live in hope without your love.

A fair warning from 1959 to all future admirers of regimes—in the end, it's children who will defend the meaningless bridges, with no chance of survival.

Screenings

12/09 • 14h15 • Screen 300
Session presented by Adilkhan Yerzhanov

Credits

  • With : Folker Bohnet, Fritz Wepper, Michael Hinz, Frank Glaubrecht, Karl Michael Balzer...
  • Screenplay : Bernhard Wicki, Michael Mansfeld, Karl-Wilhelm Vivier (based upon the novel by Manfred Gregor)
  • Photography : Gerd von Bonin
  • Editing : Carl Otto Bartning
  • Music by : Hans-Martin Majewski
  • Production : Hermann Schwerin, Jochen Schwerin