Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence

Year: 1983
Genre: War Drama
Directed: Nagisa Oshima
Stars: David Bowie, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Tom Conti, Takeshi Kitano, Jack Thompson, Johnny Ohkura, Alistair Browning, Yuya Uchida
Production: Recorded Picture Company

There is a realism to Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence; I say this as the yurei of director Nagisa Oshima rolls uncomfortably in his grave. What I mean by this is, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence achieves its realism through sheer expressionistic will. An umbrage of Le Grande Illusion (1937) and Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) much less confined by the demerits of old-school filmmaking and menacingly towering over most movies on the subject of POW camps. At the center of the tragedy between two clashing cultures are two renowned pop stars; Ryuichi Sakamoto and David Bowie. Both represent their cultures simultaneously at their most vulnerable and most recalcitrant. David Bowie may have gone through dozens of incarnations throughout his career but none have been more intuitional than that of Major Jack Celliers.

The film concerns two British officers; Celliers and Lawrence (Conti) struggling to find common ground with two Japanese officers; Commandant Yonoi (Ryuichi) and Sgt. Hara (Kitano). Lawrence avails himself as the bridge between jailer and prisoners, authorities and victims. Meanwhile duty-bound and guilt-ridden Celliers butts heads with the equally chastened Yonoi and Falstaffian sadist Hara, the former becoming infatuated with the sylph-like Celliers. Conflicted to the point of ruination, Yonoi tries to keep order in the tropical hell he himself wants to escape from but can't.

Everywhere in Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence there is dichotomy: upper-class versus warrior-class, pragmatism versus obligation even jungle versus civilization. We as the audience get respites of the steamy jungle setting with the backstories of a young Celliers in a New Zealand boarding school and Yonoi in Manchuria. The common thread between these two stalwart men is a secret guilt that delves into a homoerotic psychology. Yonoi struggles with his attraction to the roguish Celliers largely because of his adherence to the bushido code. Meanwhile Celliers (nicknamed Strafer to insinuate he a soldier's soldier) seems to indulge in more expressive, artful, some would say effeminate peculiarities. Such peculiarities include eating flowers out of a basket and pantomiming a shave, cup of joe and a cigarette when given orders. He does these things knowing full well that they bring Yonoi to a bestial froth of anger and passion.

Little known fact: Bowie studied mime

The androgyny of both Bowie and Sakamoto only adds to the sexual tension in the prison camp. Bowie's sexuality has always been a subject of controversy especially in the puritan United States circa 1983. That same year, Bowie interviewed for Rolling Stones and commented on his bisexuality as "the biggest mistake I ever made." Within that context, perhaps the sexual undertones of Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence aren't in-fact genuine but should be seen as a product of time and situation; Bowie, Sakamoto and Oshima working together to flout the moral codes of the day while simultaneously commenting on the cruelties of WWII.

The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) may have been Bowie's big-screen debut but Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence solidifies his star quality. Bowie would go on to have memorable roles in The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Basquiat (1996) and The Prestige (2006) (not to mention lending a voice to The Venture Bros. (2003-present)) yet it is Nagisa Oshima's controversial WWII chamber piece that remains his most haunting on-screen presence.

David Bowie: 1947-2016

Final Grade: C+