Blowing It
With a desperate need to keep the German offensive from advancing a group of Partisans decide they must blow up a huge bridge which would cause the German's huge delays and difficulties if impassable. The trouble is that the bridge has been so well designed and built that there is only one person who would know where any weak spots lie, the architect. Unfortunately he is not so willing to help the Partisans blow up his creation as it is his masterpiece and he doesn't want to see it destroyed.
I will keep this as short as possible because in one way I am not qualified to talk about "The Bridge" which amongst its other names is called "Most". I say I am not qualified because this is a product of the Yugoslavian movie industry of the 1960s and as I can't think of another 1960's Yugoslavian movie I have watched I can't make comparisons. From what I have read, those who are fans of the war movies which came out of Yugoslavia at the time this is a good example.
But whilst I may not know my Yugoslavian cinema I am first and foremost a movie fan and as such I can't say that "The Bridge" wowed me and to be frank I even wondered whether I was watching the same movie. Less than convincing acting with a lot of pauses combined with emotionless dialogue delivery and the choppy editing you would frequently find in older foreign movies all combine to make this at times hard work to get into. Yes when we get actions scenes and things being blown up it certainly improves but you need to wade through plenty of very ordinary scenes, some of which are painfully drawn out to get to the good stuff.
What this all boils down to is that "The Bridge" feels like one of those movies where you really need to be a fan of the very specific genre, here Yugoslavian war movies from the 60s, to really find it entertaining as other wise the flaws of the genre become too much of a barrier to get into it.
