Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		5.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		5.0

The Bridge Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov June 7, 2015

Nominated for Oscar Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Bernhard Wicki's "The Bridge" a.k.a. "Die Brücke" (1959) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion. The supplemental features on the disc include an exclusive new video interview with writer Gregor Dorfmeister; excerpt from an archival episode of the German television show Das Sonntagsgesprach; new video interview with director Volker Schlöndorff; and more. The release also arrives with an illustrated leaflet featuring film critic Terrence Rafferty's essay "Cannon Fodder" and technical credits. In German, with optional English subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".

The young soldiers

The final days of WW2. In a small German town a group of boys spend the majority of their time discussing the news coming from the front. Almost daily they see big military trucks carrying equipment and supplies and wonder what it is like fighting the enemy.

At school the boys can barely focus on their studies -- there is too much noise, too many stories about heroes they all know. Some are not pleased that their fathers have not been drafted, but try not to reveal their annoyance. A few of the boys have recently fallen in love.

The town’s elderly residents are anxious. Some can sense that their country is losing the war and have decided to send their sons and daughters away, to stay with relatives. Some are making plans to leave the town with their most valuable possessions. Many, however, are too old and too sick to run away.

The town really begins buzzing when the boys receive draft notices. A few days later, they are given their uniforms and then instructed how to handle weapons. When the local units are eventually mobilized, a veteran officer realizes that the boys will not survive a real battle and arranges that they are left behind to secure a tiny but vital bridge on the outskirts of the town.

The majority of the events chronicled in Bernhard Wicki’s The Bridge are real. In 1958, journalist Gregor Dorfmeister, writing under the pseudonym of Manfred Gregor, published a novel in which he described how during the final days of WW2 seven boys were left to defend a small bridge in the heart of Germany as Allied troops were advancing. Dorfmeister was a former member of the Hitler Youth who witnessed the collapse of the Nazi regime and the chaos and misery that ensued.

Wicki moves his camera across the town as a documentarian whose primary interest is authenticity. There are quiet moments where a boy meets a girl and their eyes reveal how they feel about each other. There are awkward moments where older soldiers make fun of the boys but they can’t tell. There are also heartbreaking moments where mothers realize that they may never see their sons again. And yet there isn’t even a whiff of melodrama in the film. Life just happens before the camera while people make decisions that affect them in different ways.

Death comes abruptly. After the boys complete their training, a highly decorated commander delivers a dull patriotic speech in which he declares that they are expected to defend the Motherland. Of course what they are about to defend is a madman’s grandiose failure, but now they are patriots and it no longer matters that they don’t believe in his dream.

The acting is incredible. There are sequences where the boys truly look intimidated next to the experienced soldiers and nervous when they are told how to use their weapons to kill their enemies. Despite the fact that Wicki could not use real tanks, the battle sequences at the end also look remarkably authentic.

The Bridge Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.37:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Bernhard Wicki's The Bridge arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion.

The following text appears inside the leaflet provided with this Blu-ray release:

"This new digital transfer was created in 2K resolution on an ARRISCAN film scanner from the original 35mm negative and 35mm duplicate negative. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches, splices, and warps were manually removed using MTI's DRS, while Digital Vision's Phoenix was used for jitter, flicker, small dirt, grain, and noise management.
The original monaural soundtrack was remastered at 24-bit from the optical soundtrack negative. Clicks, thumps, hiss, hum, and crackle were manually removed using Pro Tools HD, AudioCube's integrated workstation, and iZotope RX4.

Transfer supervisor: Lee Kline."

Clarity and especially image depth are enormously impressive. The daylight footage, in particular, looks wonderful (see screencaptures #3, 15, and 18). During the darker/nighttime footage there is an excellent range of beautifully balanced blacks and grays (see screencapture #19). Contrast levels remain stable. Because of the high-quality scanning, grain is evenly distributed and beautifully resolved throughout the entire film. There are no traces of sharpening adjustments. Overall image stability is excellent, though I should mention that a few extremely small twitches (within the frame) can be spotted. There are no large debris, cuts, damage marks, stains, or torn frames. The encoding is excellent. All in all, this is a very beautiful technical presentation of The Bridge that makes it exceptionally easy to appreciate the aesthetic vision of its creator. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free Blu-ray player in order to access its content).

The Bridge Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: German LPCM 1.0. Optional English subtitles are provided for the main feature.

When the big trucks pass through the city and later on when the explosions are heard in the back depth, clarity, and especially balance are surprisingly good. It is easy to tell that background hiss and other age-related imperfections have been carefully removed because the dialog is very sharp and clean. There are no audio dropouts or digital distortions to report in this review.

The Bridge Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Gregor Dorfmeister - The novel The Bridge was published in September 1958. It was the first literary work by 29-year-old journalist Gregor Dorfmeister, writing under the pseudonym of Manfred Gregor. In this brand new video interview, the writer, now 86 and living in Bad Tolz, Bavaria, discusses some of the events that are chronicled in his novel, his membership in the Hitler Youth, the socio-political conditions in Germany after the Nazis came to power, Bernhard Wicki's film and its visual style, etc. The interview was conducted exclusively for Criterion in March 2015. In German, with optional English subtitles. (23 min, 1080p).

• Bernhard Wicki - presented here is an excerpt from an interview included in a 1989 episode of the German television show Das Sonntagsgesprach (Sunday Talk) in which director Bernhard Wicki discusses the shooting of The Bridge, the ten months he spent in a concentration camp during WW2, the political nature of his films, etc. The interview was conducted by Anne Linsel. In German, with optional English subtitles (15 min, 1080i).

• Volker Schlöndorff - in this new video interview, director Volker Schlöndorff (The Tin Drum, The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum) recalls his initial impression of The Bridge, and discusses the clash of ideas in the film, a recently discovered documentary footage shot by an American photographer during the war and how Bernhard Wicki's film feels like a continuation of it, the impact the director and his work had on his generation and specifically the members of the New German Cinema, etc. The interview was conducted exclusively for Criterion in February 2015. In English, not subtitled. (10 min, 1080p).

• Against the Grain: The Film Legend of Bernhard Wicki - presented here is an excerpt from the 2007 documentary Against the Grain: The Film Legend of Bernhard Wicki which takes a closer look at the production history of The Bridge. Included in it are clips from an archival interview with director Bernhard Wicki, behind the scenes footage from the shooting of the film, and archival footage from the Berlin International Film Festival where the film won multiple awards. The documentary was produced by the director's widow, Elisabeth Wicki-Endriss. In German, with optional English subtitles. (10 min, 1080i).

• Leaflet - illustrated leaflet featuring film critic Terrence Rafferty's essay "Cannon Fodder". (Terrence Rafferty is the author of The Thing Happens: Ten Years of Writing About the Movies. He is also a frequent contributor to the New York Times and DGA Quarterly).

The Bridge Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Bernhard Wicki's The Bridge is yet another excellent reminder that war is hell. According to Volker Schlöndorff, it had a major impact on the New German Cinema auteurs and on an entire generation of young Germans who had to rebuild their country. The film has been recently restored in 2K and looks absolutely magnificent on Blu-ray. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.