Amazon.com: A highly unusual war movie with as many detractors as fans, this English-language feature directed by Nagisa Oshima (In the Realm of the Senses) stars David Bowie as a silent, ethereal POW in a Japanese camp. Protesting--via his own enigmatic rebellion--the camp's brutal conditions and treatment of prisoners, Bowie's character earns the respect of the camp commandant (Ryuichi Sakamoto). While the two seem locked in an unspoken, spiritual understanding, another prisoner (Tom Conti) engages in a more conventional resistance against a monstrous sergeant (Takeshi). The film has a way of evoking as many questions as certainties, and it is not always easy to understand the internal logic of the characters' actions. But that's generally true of Oshima's movies, in which the power of certain relationships is almost hallucinatory in self-referential intensity. The cast is outstanding, and Bowie is particularly fascinating in his alien way. --Tom Keogh
An accurate presentation, within confines of an R rating 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.
Keeps on keeping on-curiously prophetic American critics took a lot of potshots at this film, since it doesn't have the usual Fascinating Fascism (a phrase of the late Susan Sontag's) of the war picture, in which the ego in the darkness can sit back and feel invincible. The leading character apart from David Bowie's daemon of righteousness, played by Tom Conti, makes womanish cries when he is beaten, and he gets beaten alot. He says, "I wish they would stop hitting me".
No Americans appear as does William Holden in the Kwai thing to make it all better by giving us a Winner with whom to identify. The English army mysteriously wins the war and presumably hands "Java" back to the Dutch, about which the less said the better (the Dutch were promptly ejected by the local folks).
But like most great works of art, this work is fecund in a way that the Philistine one to five stars types will never ever get.
It has strange relevance post 9-11. You see, the Japanese think it's womanish to obey the Geneva Convention. They are engaged in a death struggle for oil and other natural resources and so have created The Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere by nicking Hong Kong and Singapore from an embattled Britain and "Java" (Indonesia) from the luckless Dutch, who were overrun in Europe by the Germans.
The Japanese don't like prisoners and think them useless [...]. , rather like Jack Cellier's little brother who is tormented apparently at Harrow for knowing nothing except singing and gardening: a neat and quiet parallel is drawn between bullying, a problem then and now, and the international wrong.
A recent BBC production, "Horror in the East" historicises Japanese brutality in WWII. It wasn't, according at least to some historians, some sort of ancient racial characteristic and during the Meiji period of the 19th century Japan evolved to as civil a country as you could want.
However, in the 1920s, its leaders realized that their urban civilization was completely dependent on foreign oil supplies. The Republican idiots in the White House in the 1920s (Harding and Coolidge) neatly signalled exactly the wrong message to Japan, which was that America needed oil and for this reason Japan could go f**k itself, and Herbert Hoover was too preoccupied with the Depression to remedy this despite his greater skill at foreign policy.
This caused a collective madness in which mature and seasoned diplomats and military men were pushed aside by young officers who decided that Japan needed to conquer China, leave the British alliance without being able to form a new alliance with the USA, and in general roar off into Asia as a race of super men.
To cultivate the new Japanese man, a *Kulturkampf* was waged in the 1920s to return women to traditional roles and ensure that Japanese men didn't become effete cosmopolitan layabouts. The result was that Japanese conduct in WWII was completely different from its conduct in WWI, when Japanese treated their (primarily German) prisoners decently, or in the Russo-Japanese war of 1905 in which the Japanese conformed to international standards in the treatment of their Russian POWs.
There are similarities to and differences from American history post 9-11. The threat of terrorism was added after 9-11 to the fear of running out of oil and a dialectical *kulturkampf* had been dialectically triggered by bimbo-feminist excesses of the 1980s. By 9-11 America was spoiling to make a fight out of an incident that was a police matter, and will never happen in the same way again, because airplane passengers would overpower any jerk with a boxcutter and toss him out the window.
9-11 was a Manchuria incident, a Reichstag fire, and thus a *casus belli* for an ambitious young careerist class that rather nihilistically make its mark upon history, in the manner of a boot stamping on a human face, owing to the brutalization of American culture by 20 years of conservative malarkey, malarkey in which 20% of Americans got rich and the remaining majority got poor, and were invited to ascribe this to their defective character.
The response to 9-11 has normed a new spirit of bullying, brutality and homophobia similarly to the toxic mix that existed in the late 1930s, and it's a job for the daemon saint to resist this as does Bowie when he saves the British commandant's life by deliberately shaming the Japanese commandant.
As such, the film is seriously hated by a lot of people. It's troubling in its implications. The ape in us wants to be on the side that's winning.
Yes, there is a rough and jagged parallel between Japanese prison camps of WWII and abu Ghraib, and Guantanamo. In both we see the coward's war against the feminine and against the threat to his comfort and pleasure. Although there is in this film a patriotic presumption that British soldiers are uniformly gentle, and soft spoken (apart from the drill sergeant and his lunatic commands on parade) and like as not to break into anthems, this presumption is well-earned by the typical British soldier,
Unfortunately, today this film could not be made as jingoism, Fundamentalism and malarkey return in phenomena such as America's foolish response to 9-11, the revival of the cult of military sacrifice in Japan, and, world-wide, a mad "return to my roots", roots that were long ago torn up and shredded.
All civilizations based on absolute subservience are dead 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
The issue is language David Bowie is not Mr. Lawrence. Nor is Mr. Lawrence Ryuchi Sakamoto, although those are the two faces that stand out on the box cover of most releases of this film. Mr. Lawrence is Tom Conti, who plays British translator Col. John Lawrence, standing as the bridge between the English-speaking prisoners and the Japanese jailers in a prison camp during WWII. As a war-time translator, Col. Lawrence is in the most difficult position imaginable. In order to be fluent in a language, it is necessary to understand the culture of that country as well, which means understanding and coming to respect their ways and methods of thinking. He can empathize with the enemy, which makes him an enemy to his own people as well. Language is a complicated issue.
And therein lies the problem with "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence". Tom Conti cannot speak Japanese, and it is painful to listen to his phonetically memorized lines. The key character, he has a difficult time realizing the role when he doesn't understand his own words. The same problem occurs with the Japanese cast, who struggle their way stiffly through the English language, being unable to focus on the characters they are portraying. On top of this, the director, Nagisa Oshima, is directing actors in a language he himself does not understand, which means he cannot tell if they are giving a good performance or not. The same problem can be seen in other movies of this type, such as Takeshi Kitano's "Brother" or Akira Kurosawa's "Rhapsody in August". Language is a complicated issue.
This could have been a great movie. The director is capable, the story is powerful, and the message is clear. But the language barrier is too great, and because the choice was not made to hire language-capable actors, the movie suffers. It was a valiant effort, attempting to contrast two cultures using a translator able to show both points of view. I would love to see it filmed again.
West vs. East in WWII (Warning: no English subtitles for Japanese dialog) I originally saw this movie many years ago on a cable premium movie channel, and I think that version had either English subtitles or dubbed English vocals for the Japanese dialog. Anyway, the particular VHS version offered here by Amazon has neither. Amazon's product description does not warn potential purchasers of this "missing piece." That said, I am glad that I decided to purchase this movie (VHS video) so that I could see it again. Also, for you viewers who are members of the NetFlix or Blockbuster rental video service, a Region 1 DVD is not available (as of Feb. 2007).
This movie is one of the most unique and interesting WWII movies I have ever seen. Tom Conti (Lawrence) and Davie Bowie (Celliers) give knockout performances. The Japanese actors are equally excellent. With the lack of subtitles, one has to guess what is transpiring when the characters are speaking Japanese (quite a lot of Japanese dialog). Fortunately, the Japanese actors are very good with facial expressions and body language, which provide some insight into what is going on.
Some reviewers have compared "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" with "The Bridge On the River Kwai" (1957). The former reflects the sensibilities of a Japanese director, and the latter the sensibilities of a British director (David Lean). Therefore, IMO, a direct comparison is not really meaningful. These two films are so very different in many ways. I also think that "Merry Christmas..." is not so much a "war movie" as it is a study in the contrast of Japanese culture and values with Western ones. The plot also explores, with the Celliers' character, the tortured mind of a man who finds himself in the most desperate of circumstances.
In summary, this is a very unusual WWII movie, but well worth the time you need to invest in understanding the character development of the Allied and Japanese soldiers without benefit of English subtitles. Perhaps sometime in the near future, this movie will be released in a Region 1 DVD format with subtitles and some digital restoration of the original film. Such an effort should well reward the owners of this film financially. And, of course, the many lovers of this movie (in Region 1--USA and Canada) will benefit, too.
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