戦場のメリークリスマス
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Nagisa ŌshimaMusik:
Ryūichi SakamotoBesetzung:
David Bowie, Tom Conti, Ryūichi Sakamoto, Jack Thompson, Takeshi Kitano, Takashi Naitō, Hiroshi Mikami, Hideo Murota, 内田裕也, 飯島大介, Kan Mikami, Rokkô TouraStreaming (1)
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1942 kommt der britische Colonel Lawrence in ein japanisches Kriegsgefangenenlager im Dschungel von Java. Unmenschliche Bedingungen zerren an Kraft und Nerven, dennoch pflegt er ein respektvolles Verhältnis mit dem Lagerkommandanten Yonoi. Als der unbeugsame Major Cellier ins Lager eingeliefert wird, entspinnt sich ein Machtkampf zwischen ihm und Yonoi. Eines Tages demütigt Cellier Yonoi, um das Leben eines Mitgefangenen zu retten. Der Auftakt einer vernichtenden Eskalationsspirale. (Verleiher-Text)
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God only knows why I thought of James Clavell's book "King Rat" while watching the film. I unwittingly set the stage for a personal confrontation with this film, which has only the Japanese prison camp in common with the book. Otherwise, Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence is an incredibly evocative work with its own plot, which boasts a very interesting narrative value. The Japanese-British clash, not only in the field of war but also in culture and customs, is the main driving force of the script, with a storyline that is not particularly surprising. It's all about the little things and minimalist scenes like a samurai training that disturbs the British from their sleep or an execution in the traditional way. It is exactly in these subtleties that the director excels, polishing individual scenes down to the smallest details. However, as a whole, the film lacks a faster pace and any kind of plot escalation. The music holds a peculiar place here, blending classic "military" motifs with "traditional" tones clearly evoking Japan, and it strongly enhances the atmosphere. Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence could be summed up in words as an easily forgettable film with a number of memorable scenes, and for those, the film earns the highest rating from me.
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Nagisa Oshima always focused more on the meanings and ideas that he expressed in his films than on the craft of filmmaking. Therefore, Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence can in some ways seem unfocused, drawn-out and even haphazard in places, especially today. However, that doesn’t mean that it can’t have an effect on viewers. Instead of spectacular displays of war, such as battle scenes and troop movements, Oshima made a war movie that focuses on the very nature of human conflict, as well as on the near impossibility of resolving it. The setting of a POW camp during the war in the Pacific enables him to develop several parallel and interrelated themes that go far beyond a specific place and time. The film’s central character is the interpreter Lawrence (Tom Conti), who is supposed to mediate contact between the warring parties and through whom the theme of understanding is developed in the sense of mutual sympathy, as well as mediation of dialogue. His work is fatally sabotaged by systems that dictate the order, rules and values of nations and their individual citizens. Through the context of war, the essence of which is destructive chaos, the concept of order proves to be utterly absurd. The anarchist redeemer Celliers (David Bowie) stands as the antithesis of these influences, which the narrative manifests in the characters of the guards and captured officers. Though the insertion of Celliers’s flashback into an otherwise linear narrative may seem clumsy and heavy-handed, it is absolutely essential for Oshima’s web of ideas. On the one hand, it shows that the two sides, riled up by propaganda and lifelong indoctrination, have more in common than they are willing to admit. They are essentially based on systematised and institutionalised cruelty, which strips people of their individuality and forms them into uniformed units that do not challenge the dictated order and status quo. At the same time, however, it illustrates that real heroes are not so fearless and flawless, and that they also struggle with the shadows and wounds of their past transgressions. A true hero is not just someone who has welcomed the deliverance brought by war from the oppressive shackles of the past and the relationships that he left behind at home, but rather a person who defies the system and, despite the rules of that system, shows his humanity, or rather a piece of his inner self. Throughout the film, Oshima emphasises such minor miracles of humanism in an inhumane system. Whether it’s the defiant actions of Major Celliers, the effort to understand and know Lawrence, Captain Jonoi’s longing for touch and freedom, or simply Sergeant Hara’s cunning yet kind Christmas gesture. But they have all been victims of men who think they are right, while also being guilty of sometimes thinking that they themselves are right. Throughout the course of the narrative, Oshima slowly reveals, from various points of view, the depressing tragedy of individuals caught up in a ruthless system, whether that’s war or a hierarchical society. All the more powerful then is the final line of the film, which sums up all of the above in a simple yet emotionally devastating gesture of understanding and belonging, with a touch of humanity that bridges all dictates of nations, ranks, hierarchies and the winning and losing sides.
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Make (queer) love, not war, so says Mr. Bowie. During most of the footage, the theme of mutual respect (love?) of men on the other sides of barricades, bars and cultural environments is captured in a non-tradition way in an interesting movie. However, if you call something interesting, it is in a way hypocrisy, as you operate in "unexplored land" between clearly defined concepts of good and bad. And this film is exactly like that; therefore interesting rather than good or bad and it is in many respects overwhelmed by impropriety (a prisoner of war camp in the 1940s tinged by an 80's synth soundtrack playing Japanese rhythms evoking the Czech song "Special flight Prague-Tokyo" or the cast of David Bowie, who doesn't even try to be Celliers and Bowie as you only know him. He just has a messy hair here, indicating that he is torn apart inside, or if you let a Japanese speak Japanese in "shogun-like" way, which is impressive, but if you let the same Japanese speak the same thing and the same diction in English, your ears will hurt, all the prisoners are so neat and tidy, etc.). However, the biggest problem (apart from the length) is the already famous scene of "setting accounts" in front of the camp, when it is clear what the creators were about and how it should have worked on paper, but they did not manage to make it work. Not even remotely. I told you from the very beginning that it is an interesting film.
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