The Best Old Movies on a Big Screen This Week: NYC Repertory Cinema Picks, January 11-18
Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983)
Dircted by Nagisa Oshima
British POW Jack Celliers (David Bowie) is described as, like his portrayer, “a difficult man.” Difficult in that, yes, both rebel against authority—with quite a bit of sass—but both also wield unearthly traits that we have yet to fully grasp. Their sexuality is ambiguous. They are soldiers who do not fit the typical template. Complex men relying upon performance for survival. When an imprisoned Celliers mimes luxuries like a smoke or a shave, or when he eats flowers, his eccentric acts of peaceful opposition clash with the oppressive rods of his Japanese captors. Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence finds tension with the rest of Oshima’s —instead of portraying sexuality and obsession explicitly, the provocateur chooses to be more gentle in his visual poetry, even as violent acts of nature and man triumph. It’s no typical POW film—the men are too starved and beaten to whistle cheerfully. There’s no great escape either—whether prisoner or captor, these men are trapped by their cultural mores, and by their dark pasts.
Most famously, there’s the enigmatic bond between Celliers and camp head Yanoi (fellow rock star Ryuichi Sakamato). Yanoi’s glammy visage (compared to a bedraggled Bowie—but damn, he makes it look good) suggests inner performative traits of his own: he’s acting a disciplined way of the samurai while repressing his obsessions toward Celliers. Is it erotic, or spiritual? Does Yanoi respect him for bravery, or as a fellow with a dark past? Celliers, on the other hand, figures him as a man in desperate need of affection; a man with absolute power in isolation. It’s similar to the film’s more underrated bond, the one that gives the film its title. Captain Lawrence (Tom Conti), the lone mediator between the British and the Japanese, has a frenemy in Sgt. Hara (Takeshi Kitano), with whom the film’s central arguments of cultural differences—particularly in approaching the human spirit—take place. Hara sees honor in death, yet, drunk on holiday spirits (mainly sake), he pardons Lawrence and Celliers. Even as Celliers proves to be not so lucky—one year on from Bowie’s earthly departure, those final images of him drying to death in sand still sting—the enshrining of his blond locks proves Oshima recognized in Bowie a legacy that would stretch far, far beyond death. Max Kyburz (January 13, 7pm at Japan Society)