The bridge on the river kwai ending?

Question by justbeatitman: The bridge on the river kwai ending?
Throughout the movie, i thought that the movie was about Nicholson making the bridge for the Japanese since he believed that English should be proud and happy in whatever they do, and quite correctly so. In my mind, i had the feeling that the Warden would try to blast the bridge, because it was eventually being made for the Japanese, and while he is doing so, Nicholson would remember the effort and the determination which was put in by the English soldiers, and would therefore try to stop the warden. But after the warden would successfully blast the bridge, Nicholson would be sad and at the same time angry at his comrades. He would then deliver some kind of speech on “peace during war”.

But what happened in the last five minutes, I couldn’t really understand. Why did Nicholson say “What have I done?” ? and did he deliberately fall on the lever? Because if he did, the movie didn’t make sense! The bridge wasn’t only affecting the Japanese but also the English by “carrying the injured ones across” and THAT was perhaps the whole basis of the story, ‘Helping the enemy and eventually making peace and reaching a truce’! How could Nicholson forget the effort which was put in making the bridge and change his mind in the last few minutes to destroy the bridge?

Best answer:

Answer by charlie_tuna57
In my opinion, Alex Guinness (Nicholson) suddenly realized that, due to selfish pride in his British workmanship, he was actually aiding and abetting the enemy. I think that he only HALF wanted to blow up the bridge and was about to do so when shot, and ended up falling on the detonator. He was conflicted.

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