Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence
Jeremy Thomas (Producer), Nagisa Ōshima (Screenwriter, Director), Paul Mayersberg (Screenwriter), David Bowie (Actor), Tom Conti (Actor), Ryūichi Sakamoto (Actor, Composer), Bīto Takeshi (Actor), Jack Thompson (Actor), Mickey Lemle (Director, Producer), Laurens Van der Post, Lemle Pictures, Inc, South African Broadcasting Corporation, National Film Trustee Company, Antares-Nova N.V., Recorded Picture Company, Ōshima Nagisa Purodakushon, BS Asahi (Firm), Broadbank Investments Limited, Criterion Collection (Firm)
In a Japanese prison camp on Java in 1942, two British officers, John Lawrence and Jack Celliers, encounter camp commander Yonoi and his sergeant Hara. Things had been going pretty well, until charismatic, rebellious Celliers arrived. Yonoi is a devotee of the samurai ideal; neither he nor Hara can understand the stoic way in which the British prisoners accept their situation of defeat. Lawrence speaks Japanese, and ceaselessly tries to mediate between the prisoners and their overseers, translating both the words and the values of the two races. Celliers' attitude, however, is more comprehensible to Yonoi. He and Celliers arrive at a sort of détente, based on an admiration for the other, but this eventually turns into a contest of wills as the camp's carefully nurtured equilibrium is destroyed
DVD Video, English, ©2010
Widescreen
Criterion Collection, [Irvington, NY], ©2010