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The Bridge

Screening: Monday 24 September, 6:30pm

The Bridge [Die Brücke] (Bernhard Wicki, West Germany 1959)

“War's a nice game, isn't it,” a fretful teacher asks his students as they argue cheerfully over military strategy. It's 1945, the Allies are advancing, and these sixteen-year-olds will soon be trading in their short pants for German army uniforms, learning the hard way that war isn't child's play.

“As if it were purposely designed to reopen the healing wounds of the German people” (New York Times), The Bridge revisits the final days of the war in Europe, when juvenile soldiers were used as “human sandbags” to delay the inevitable German defeat. The film's seven young protagonists are victims of their ideals: while their commanders know their mission is strategically unimportant, the boys believe it is their glorious duty to defend every inch of German ground.

Widely praised for its relentless depiction of war's terror and futility, The Bridge remains a potent warning about the perils of nationalism. Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe co-winner, Best Foreign Language Film, 1960. (Juliet Clark) Written by Michael Mansfield and Karl Wilhelm Vivier. Photographed by Gerd von Bonin. With Karl Michael Balzer, Folker Bohnet, Frank Glaubrecht, Michael Hinz.

(16mm, B&W, 104 mins, In German with English subtitles)

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