12 Films of Christmas: Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence | reviews, news & interviews
12 Films of Christmas: Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence
12 Films of Christmas: Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence
David Bowie and Tom Conti wrestle with honour, identity and the burdens of the past in Japanese POW camp
David Bowie already had a bit of previous with Christmas, of course, after pa-rum-pa-pumpum-ing through the tinsel with Bing back in 1977. He plays a very different kind of drummer boy in Nagisa Oshima’s uneven but oddly haunting 1983 film, in which he stars alongside Tom Conti (last seen in Miranda, of all things) and Ryuichi Sakamoto.
Bowie is Major Jack Celliers, one of four military men, each one trapped in very different ways, in a Japanese POW camp on Java in 1942. While Conti's John Lawrence is the film's moral compass, his rancour laced with decency and respect as he clashes with senior sergeant Hara (Takeshi Kitano), the quietly rebellious Celliers and conflicted Captain Yonoi (Sakamoto) play out a more complex, sublimated game of emotional and physical cat-and-mouse. Much is left unsaid or unexplained, as you might expect from Oshima, director of the infamous In the Realm of the Senses (1976), but the depth of emotional intent cuts through in a film exploring the nature of power, loyalty, honour, ritual and cultural identity, as well as the secrets of the past and the taboo of homosexuality.
The simmering tension comes to a head on Christmas Eve. The climactic kiss Celliers plants on Yonoi – a soldier’s kiss, formal yet freighted with resonance – proves seismic. Later, Yonoi takes a lock of hair from Celliers, who has been buried up to his neck in the unforgiving sun and left to die.
Conti is terrific while Celliers remains Bowie’s most convincing film role alongside Newton in Nic Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth. It’s a far from flawless movie - the mixture of naturalistic Western acting and the overwrought, maxed-up Japanese style is an uneasy one, although that's partly the point - but it casts a dream-like spell which lingers long after the final frame.
rating
Explore topics
Share this article
Add comment
The future of Arts Journalism
You can stop theartsdesk.com closing!
We urgently need financing to survive. Our fundraising drive has thus far raised £33,000 but we need to reach £100,000 or we will be forced to close. Please contribute here: https://gofund.me/c3f6033d
And if you can forward this information to anyone who might assist, we’d be grateful.
Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
To take a subscription now simply click here.
And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?
Comments
Funnily I think Tikano steals
One of the first films which