Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence [VHS] [1983]: David Bowie, Tom Conti, Ryûichi Sakamoto, Takeshi Kitano, Jack Thompson, Johnny Okura, Alistair Browning, James Malcolm, Chris Broun, Yûya Uchida, Ryunosuke Kaneda, Takashi Naitô, Nagisa Ôshima, Eiko Oshima, Geoffrey Nethercott, Jeremy Thomas, Joyce Herlihy, Laurens Van der Post, Paul Mayersberg: Amazon.co.uk: Video

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

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

Synopsis

Set in a POW camp on Java in 1942. A psychological drama about culture clashes and the will to survive. A British Army officer wages a war of wills against his strict and belligerent Japanese captors.

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Customer Reviews

15 Reviews

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
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Average Customer Review

4.7 out of 5 stars (15 customer reviews)

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30 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A powerful movie spoiled by a poor quality DVD transfer, 7 Feb 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence [DVD] [1983] (DVD)

This emotionally powerful film has excellent performances from all the lead roles. I would give it five stars, if it weren't that the DVD transfer were so poor. The image has low contrast and the soundtrack has some noticable breaks and other noises. See this movie, but be warned about the "Second Sight" edition.

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superbly cult and decadent, 14 April 2007

By	Jacques COULARDEAU "A soul doctor, so to say" (OLLIERGUES France) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence [DVD] [1983] (DVD)

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

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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic- Crime to miss it, 19 April 2005

By	Euripides "Berry" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence [DVD] [1983] (DVD)

Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence is a film which covers many things, on many different levels- the simplest being that of a war film. However to dismiss it as such would be to do an injustice to this superb bit of film making.

The tangled tensions of this prisoner of war camp make for riveting viewing as two cultures clash between their views of honour. The sergeant (Takeshi Kitano) cannot reconcile his friendship with Lawrence (Tom Conte) with his view of Westerner's being weak and dishonourable. In one particulary memorable scene Kitano declares all Englishmen to be homosexual, and thus views his superior's deeper relationship with Bowie as suspect

The strange subliminal attraction between Celliers and Yonoi adds another depth to this already layered film, as Yonoi fights to understand what can give Cellier's such courage to face death without Yonoi's reassurance of Samurai ancestors.

Sakamoto gives a moving performance of a man displaced from time, longing for the simpler times of war and honour, caught in a limbo between his attraction to celliers and his need to do what was right.

The music was beautiful and the cinematography excellent. I highly recommend this film for anyone even if you are not interested in war films- I'm not myself

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