Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence

Director: Nagisa Oshima Nagisa Oshima

Overview

Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence was the first English-language project of Japanese director Nagisa Oshima (Death by Hanging, In the Realm of the Senses). In tune with his previous filmic essays on racism and brutality, Merry Christmas concentrates on a war of wills between rebellious POW David Bowie and camp commandant Ryuichi Sakomoto. Assuming that his other prisoners' unwillingness to protest their cruel treatment is a sign of weakness, Sakomoto is most impressed by Bowie's enigmatic defiance. While Bowie and Sakomoto seem to be operating on a high spiritual and intellectual plane, bilingual prisoner Tom Conti (the "Mr. Lawrence" of the title) engages in a more standard adversarial relationship with sadistic sergeant Takeshi Kitano.

Product Details

Release Date:	09/22/2010
UPC:	0715515062015
Original Release:	1983
Source:	Criterion Collection
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Stereo]
Time:	2:03:00
Sales rank:	9,699

Special Features

The Oshima Gang, a 1983 Making-0f Featurette; New Video Interviews with Producer Jeremy Thomas, Screenwriter Paul Mayersberg, Actor Tom Conti, and Actor-Composer Ryuichi Sakamoto; Hasten Slowly, an hour-long 1996 Documentary about Author Laurens van der Post, whose Autobiographical novel was the basis for the film; Original Theatrical Trailer; New and Improved English subtitle translation; Plus: a Booklet featuring an essay by film writer Chuck Stephens and reprinted Interviews with Director Nagisa Oshima and Actor Takeshi Kitano

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

David Bowie	Celliers
Tom Conti	Col. John Lawrence
Ryuichi Sakamoto	Yonoi
Jack Thompson	Hicksley
Johnny Okura	Kanemoto
Alistair Browning	DeJong
James Malcolm	Celliers' brother
Yuya Uchida	Commandant
Ryunosuke Kaneda	Col Fujimara
Taketoshi Naito	Lt. lwata
Tamio Ishikura	Actor
Richard Adams	Actor
Chris Broun	Jack (boy),Cellier - younger
Christopher Brown	Celliers at Age 12
Rob Jayne	Actor
Richard Mills	Actor
Hideo Murota	Actor
Rokko Toura	Actor
Takeshi Kitano	Sgt. Gengo Hara

Technical Credits

Nagisa Oshima

Paul Mayersberg

Nagisa Oshima	Director,Screenwriter
Terry Glinwood	Executive Producer
Masato Hara	Executive Producer
Joyce Herlihy	Associate Producer
Paul Mayersberg	Screenwriter
Toichiro Narushima	Cinematographer
Geoffrey Nethercott	Executive Producer
Eiko Oshima	Executive Producer
Tomoyo Oshima	Editor
Ryuichi Sakamoto	Score Composer
Andrew Sanders	Art Director,Production Designer
Jeremy Thomas	Producer
Shigemasa Toda	Production Designer

Editorial Reviews

Director Nagisa Oshima and co-writer Paul Mayersburg's narrative is more fractured than in most films of the POW camp genre, in which the story inevitably leads to some kind of escape. They are interested in exploring the psychology of their characters and the geometry of the camp, in which the captors are both wardens and interrogators, and the prisoners both captors and resisters. A rarity among prisoner of war films, Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence also addresses the subject of homosexuality, not in overt fashion, but as a fact of POW camp life. Using two androgynous performers, Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto (who also wrote the film's score) and British musician David Bowie, to play the adversaries Yonoi and Celliers, Oshima suggests that Celliers' ability to withstand abuse from his captors elicits more than just admiration from the commandant. Tom Conti's John Lawrence is the supposed bridge between the two warring sides, thanks to his ability to speak Japanese, but he is powerless to stop the sadistic Sergeant Hara (Beat Takeshi Kitano, here billed as "Takeshi") from abusing Celliers. If the film isn't the crowd-pleaser that The Great Escape was or a more coherent mediation on the officers' code that Grand Illusion was, it is an honest attempt to examine the cultural differences that mark the POW setting.

All Movie Guide - Tom Wiener