Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983) — Nagisa Oshima
Director Nagisa Oshima and his uncontrollable man trying to escape society’s constraints.
The movie opens with a violent scene, a guard being punished for getting himself involved with one of the camp’s European prisoners and, even though not being your typical war film, Nagisa Oshima’s common audacious thematics are already introduced.
His current topics include social taboos, such as sexuality, political disbelief and the opposition of Japanese culture and society to the foreign. In “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence” he tells the story of the microcosmos of a Japanese prisoner camp during Second World War. The guard who brutally punishes the Korean guard in the beginning of the film is Sargent Hara (Takeshi Kitano) who, aided by the bilingual prisoner Lieutenant Lawrence (Tom Conti), controls its prisoners and maintains its order, although responding to the camp commander, Captain Yanoi (Ryuichi Sakamoto). But it’s not until David Bowie’s character, Major Celliers, has his first scene that the events seem to unravel. He is brought to the camp after managing to avoid an unfair death sentence at a Japanese court. Meaning, Major Celliers, already starts off with a heroic almost God-like aura. No wonder Captain Yanoi is interested in this man who acts as though he is untouchable. A man who is a man and not a dog. They develop an intimate relationship, despite keeping their distance as prisoner-guard, which affects the way captain Yanoi behaves with his own prisoners and his subordinates, who try to eliminate Celliers. The most intense scene happens when Celliers stops Yanoi with a kiss on the cheeks from raging out his frustration of feelings he can’t comprehend on another prisoner.
These incomprehensible feelings and how men deal with them are, in my opinion, the main subject of the movie. Captain Yanoi is obviously attracted to Major Celliers but his position as Japanese soldier, as camp captain and as man tells him he shouldn’t be feeling so. Most of the polemic surrounding director Nagisa Oshima concerns the way he portraits taboos in his work, like xenophobia or homosexuality, in this case. He once said “Nothing that is expressed is obscene. What is obscene is what is hidden.”, in other words, his main goal as a creative persona was to address what is not addressed, just as what he did on “In The Realm of Senses” some decades before Mr. Lawrence.
“Nothing that is expressed is obscene. What is obscene is what is hidden.” — Nagisa Oshima
By the end of the film, as war had already come to an end, both Captain Yanoi and Major Celliers have passed. Lieutenant Lawrence is paying a visit to his unconventional friend, Sargent Hara, who is now a prisoner himself and is about to be killed as a war criminal. They talk about their dead acquaintances and how everything that happened during war was strange and wrong. And Hara seems to be conformed with that, though not understanding how his behavior was any different from that of the other guards. They conclude that everything that happens during the war is wrong, expressing Oshima’s discontent and skepticism towards war and politics. After saying good bye to Mr. Lawrence, Sargent Hara wishes him a Merry Christmas, with a smile on his face.
“Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence” is one of the best films made by the landmark of Nagisa Oshima and, being one of the most polemic artists Japan has ever produced, his work does not leave behind to expectations. It covers a range of society taboos with great directing, acting and soundtracking. It’s, as already mentioned in the beginning of this text, an unconventional war film, for it’s a sensitive piece about a brutal event. Also, it’s a good alternative for those who are tired of the same Christmas kind of cinema year after year.
