Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence
by Nagisa Ôshima
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: David Bowie, Jack Thompson, Ryûichi Sakamoto, Takeshi Kitano, Tom ContiDirector: Nagisa Ôshima
Writer: Nagisa Ôshima
Producer: Eiko Oshima
Producer: Geoffrey Nethercott
Producer: Jeremy Thomas
Producer: Joyce Herlihy
Writer: Laurens Van der Post
Writer: Paul Mayersberg
Audio: English (Original Language); Japanese (Original Language)
Format: Import, NTSC
Running Time: 122 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2002-05-14
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: LW Editora
Movie Reviews of Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence
Movie Review: All civilizations based on absolute subservience are dead
Summary: 5 Stars
This film was kind of cult when it came out. Because of David Bowie of course, but also because of the side of the Second World War it showed. In this case, the Japanese refused to apply Geneva conventions and forced onto their prisoners the code of conduct of the Samourai. The result is of course a great level of suffering, total disregard of death and dying, treating a hara-kiri execution as an honor, an honorable spectacle that any soldier should consider as a privilege to be able to watch ... For these Japanese soldiers it is a sign of a total lack of courage to accept to be the prisoners of those who defeated you. The only honorable course of action should be dying, and killing themselves in the last run. When Jack Celliers is captured, tried and sentenced to come to this prisoners' camp, he is bound to explode the whole situation because the commander of the camp, Captain Yonoi, thinks he is different and might be of the Samourai vein. In fact Celliers is a typical British officer: never yields, never accepts the unlawful rule of the enemy, resists and disturbs as long as he is alive in their hands. Yonoi decides a two day fast for everyone, prisoners included, Celliers will provide the prisoners with flowers for food. He will thus lead Yonoi to absolute mental breakdown and the final straw that will break the camel's back will be the double brotherly kiss Celliers will give him in front of everyone when condemned to die or nearly. Celliers revealed thus Yonoi was attracted, fascinated, hence in love even if only as a soldier with Celliers. So Celliers will die buried neck deep in sand and Yonoi will come and get a lock of his hair before he is dead. This lock will be brought in a locket and deposited in a shrine in Japan by Mr Lawrence, the interface between Yonoi and the prisoners, after the war and after Yonoi was executed. The film reveals thus the head-on and headlong confrontation of two military civilizations: the Samourais were obviously condemned by history, but also by life and war. They could not survive this clash. David Bowie is superb in his role and Sakamoto is just as perfect. Cult it is, but also somewhere sickening. How could such an old civilization as Japan come to such an end? We will forgive the film for the obvious fakeness of all violent acts.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine & University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne
Summary of Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence
Nagisa Ôshima turned to Sir Laurens van der Post's semiautobiographical The Seed and the Sower for this fascinating prisoner-of-war saga. It's 1942 in Java, and the captors favor Colonel Lawrence (Tom Conti) for his honorable nature and facility with languages. New arrival Jack Celliers (David Bowie), on the other hand, has no intention of playing by the rules. Captain Yonoi (Oscar-winning composer Ryûichi Sakamoto, The Last Emperor) finds himself drawn to the blond major, while the brutal Sergeant Hara (filmmaker Takeshi Kitano in his dramatic debut) treats him like any other captive (if anything, Hara prefers him to Jack Thompson's combative commander). When Lawrence and Celliers disturb Yonoi's sense of order, he decides to punish them both--guilty or not--but Celliers receives the brunt of his anger, frustration, and thwarted desire (a point on which Ôshima remains ambiguous).As in later works, like Gohatto, the director combines grit (seppuku, burial in sand), glamour (pop stars), and lyricism (the lilacs of Jack's childhood). If the regal Ryûichi inhabits his role with discomfort, Kitano, then best known as a comedian, fits his like a glove. And though Sakamoto's synth-based score sounds like a product of the 1980s, it adds to the mood of the piece.
This two-disc sets offers an essay from critic Chuck Stevens, interviews with Sakamoto and screenwriter Paul Mayersberg (The Man Who Fell to Earth), a profile of van der Post, and two featurettes, including The Ôshima Gang, in which Bowie describes Nagisa's work as "an expression rather than an impression of an idea." In its volatile mix of repression and respect, Merry Christmas plays like a psycho-sexual response to The Bridge on the River Kwai. As producer Jeremy Thomas notes, Ôshima liked to work quickly, and his first English-language feature isn't perfect, but it's certainly powerful. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
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