Customer Reviews
A Brilliant and Tragic Film - By: D. Evans, 05 Aug 2008 
Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence was a joint venture between a Japanese & Western team. The film is directed by Nagisa Oshima, in what would be his first English language production. Despite working in a language that was not his own, Oshima has managed to produce a stellar work, that is subtle, powerful & moving.
The story takes place in a Japanese Prisoner of War camp on Java in 1942. This camp is run by Captain Yonoi (Ryuichi Sakamoto), an uptight & strict soldier who is obsessed with honour & the samurai code of bushido. He looks down on alll members of the camp as dishonourable cowards, as they chose to surrender rather than commit suicide after defeat. One prisoner of this camp is Col.John Lawrence (Tom Conti), a man who has spent many years in the Far East. He is a fluent Japanese speaker who can converse with the camp guards, giving him the edge over the other monolingual prisoners. Lawrence has struck up a bizarre relationship with Sgt. Hara (Takeshi Kitano) an obtuse & somewhat aggressive man, who nonetheless can show some kindness & humanity when he wants too. Lawrence who had at one time respected the Japanese & their culture has now become disillusioned with them, following the cruel treatment he has to endure.
Soon a new arrival threatens to throw the camp's order into chaos. Major. Jack Celliers (David Bowie) is a roguish veteran of many campaigns whose odd behaviour bemuses the Japanese. He is spared execution because of Captain Yonoi's fascination with him. Yonoi cannot reconcile his knowledge of the bushido code with Cellier's behaviour, because Celliers is both brave & honourable, yet reckless & eccentric. It is also suggested that Yonoi is attracted to Celliers, & therefore he cannot bring himself to kill him, even though Celliers threatens to cause an upheaval.
Yonoi & Sgt. Hara decide to put Celliers under the care of Col. Lawrence. It is here that Lawrence learns of Cellier's past as a burnt out soldier who is haunted by many demons, especiallly his inability to protect his younger brother from school bullies. Yet Celliers's self destructive tendencies have the better of him. He attempts escape & does his best to be uncooperative & rude to the camp leaders. It becomes apparent to Lawrence that unless he is able to dampen the situation Yonoi will finallly erupt into rage, which might lead to terrible consequences for Celliers & the entire camp.
This is a powerful & subtle clash of cultures story. Both sides believe that they are right, & both sides are confused with each others attitudes & beliefs. In the middle of this we have Col. Lawrence who is torn between loyalty to his own people, & his respect of Japanese Pre-War culture.
The acting by the cast is excellent. David Bowie, Takeshi Kitnao & Tom Conti should alll be congratulated for their performances, & the script writers should be congratulated for creating such interesting three dimensional characters. Ryuichi Sakamoto's performance does go a bit over the top sometimes, but that is usuallly because of the Japanese style of acting. Yet Sakamoto makes up for this by producing his memorable musical score, especiallly the haunting main theme.
Overalll this is a brilliant film. It might be hard to follow at first, but repeated viewings will make you gain a better appreciation of the film. My only criticism of the film is that it can be a bit dated in some ways, but its not too distracting. This is an incredibly moving film, & the ending is one of the most memorable & tragic I've ever seen. Certainly one to watch.
Superbly cult and decadent - By: Jacques COULARDEAU, 14 Apr 2007 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 & 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 & 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, & killing themselves in the last run. When Jack Celliers is captured, tried & 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 & 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 & 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 & 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 & Yonoi will come & get a lock of his hair before he is dead. This lock will be brought in a locket & deposited in a shrine in Japan by Mr Lawrence, the interface between Yonoi & the prisoners, after the war & after Yonoi was executed. The film reveals thus the head-on & headlong confrontation of two military civilizations: the Samourais were obviously condemned by history, but also by life & war. They could not survive this clash. David Bowie is superb in his role & 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 alll violent acts.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine & University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne
Fantastic- Crime to miss it - By: Euripides, 19 Apr 2005 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 & dishonourable. In one particulary memorable scene Kitano declares alll Englishmen to be homosexual, & thus views his superior's deeper relationship with Bowie as suspect
The strange subliminal attraction between Celliers & 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 & honour, caught in a limbo between his attraction to celliers & his need to do what was right.
The music was beautiful & the cinematography excellent. I highly recommend this film for anyone even if you are not interested in war films- I'm not myself
Better than the film! - By: Martin Fielding, 30 Mar 2005 The film was a bit iffy but the music is excellent - if you like this try the soundtracks to Last Emperor & Wuthering Heights as well.
Haunting, Unique and Memorable - By: , 28 Jan 2005 I can't remember what drew me to watch this film, but I'm so glad that I did. The film, without giving too much away, is basicallly about a group of mainly British soldiers who are being held in a POW camp in Japan, where they find it hard to understand the Japanese culture & ideas, such as death being seen as honour. The main character, Major Celliers (David Bowie) is sent to the camp where because of his stubborn & somewhat strange actions, his captors begin to think he is possesed by an evil spirit.
Although on the whole the film is sad, slightly shocking & memorable for it's uniqueness, there are funny parts in it despite the bitter subject. There is also some very memorable imagery such as David Bowie being burried in sand up to his neck...
David Bowie was amazing in it which I did not reallly expect due to only previously seeing him in Labyrinth (Though he was also good in that)
The music is both haunting & memorable, especiallly the tune right at the begining which is reverberated thoughout the film.
Although the film is not for every one, if you are searching for a film which has something different about it, I deffinatly recomend this.
