The Bridge on the River Kwai

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The Bridge on the River Kwai

Introduction

‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’ is a 1956 British-American epic war movie, based on a French novel translating to the same name. Though a fictional story, it is inspired by the construction of a real life project of the Burma Railway. The core theme of the movie is ‘Madness’. The movie showcases multiple Organizational Behavior concepts like organization culture, structure, leadership, power and politics.  

Summary

During the second world war, a group of British Prisoners are moved to a prison camp in Burma to build a railway bridge over River Kwai. The camp was held by the Japanese Army, under the supervision of a Colonel Saito. Colonel Saito has the task to build the bridge, and he wanted to use all the personnel available to build the bridge. Colonel Nicholson, from the British army was against this decision, and sighted rules backing to Geneva convention that, ‘Officers cannot be used as manual labor’. After this conflict the Col. Nicholson and his officers are sent to dark rooms while rest of the troops work. The troops consistently sabotage the work of the bridge, slowing its progress. Col. Saito eventually gives in to Col. Nicholson, and lets him lead his troops to build the bridge. Col. Nicholson wanted to build the bridge as a monument of British honor. He starts over the project with his own officers as engineers. Col. Nicholson does not compromise on his principles at first, but after a point the we see him do the same to achieve the task at hand. At the same time the Allies are planning to destroy the bridge. The escaped Commander Shears with more British troops head to mission to destroy the bridge with the help of a few locals. Towards the end, it is not clear if Col. Nicholson has his loyalty to himself or towards his nation as he tries to stop his own allies from performing their military duties

Structure of Camp

The prisoner camp had unequal formal power distribution as any such institution should have. But the warden (Col. Saito) did not have complete control over the prisoners at is camp, as power is shared by him and Col. Nicholson. The power politics continues between them throughout the movie with many power tactics like rational persuasion, legitimacy, pressure and exchange coming into play.

Influence tactics used by Col. Nicholson used rational persuasion, upward appeal & consultation with Col. Saito. While with his troops he used, inspirational appeal, rational persuasion, legitimating & consultation.

While the movie did not give any instance of Work specialization and departmentalization in the troops, it is fair to assume that any person could have been assigned any task as per the requirement. The chain of command at the camp was hindered by presence of two leaders. The unity in command did not exist while degree of authority was high. The span of control was narrow with limited guards looking after large number of prisoners.

The standardization in the system was due to the military values of the soldiers rather than the rules laid out in the camp as physical force was always a method of persuasion available to people. There was also low minority influence within the troops, as no one engaged in mutiny for building the bridge once Col. Nicholson was in charge and engaged in activities which were questionable in context.