Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence
by Nagisa Ôshima
(Click here)
Canada
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: PAL
Running Time: 123 minutes
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Movie Reviews of Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence
Movie Review: An accurate presentation, within confines of an R rating
Summary: 4 Stars
This film presented in a fair manner the abhorrent mentality of the Japanese during the days of their Empire; depicting that reality on film would have required an X rating, because their treatment of non-Japanese humans was beyond atrocious. Things ended in August 1945 exactly as they should have.
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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