![]() ![]() ![]() Set on Java during the Second World War, it’s the English-language debut of Oshima, an enfant terrible of the Japanese New Wave, who has continually explored issues that polite Japanese society would rather ignore. Lawrence, out on DVD in a pristine, super-luxe Criterion edition - remains a sometimes oblique, though haunting, experience. It was an intellectual puzzle I couldn’t be bothered to solve.įast forward to 2010. I was fascinated by the explosive opening scene, but the film was far too cerebral for my fresh-out-of-high school mindset, weaned as I was on Entertainment Tonight and Aaron Spelling fluff. Lawrence – or portions of it – in my teens, more years ago than I care to say, on cable, possibly Bravo, and I’d forgotten that the Lawrence of the title is actually played by British stage stalwart Tom Conti, and that David Bowie portrays Major Jack Celliers, a character crucial to the story, but with considerably less screen time. Both men are cultural interlopers, thousands of miles from Mother Britannia, unsure of their footing in a strange land.Īh, memory. You see, the flaxen-haired, angular-faced O’Toole doesn’t look radically dissimilar to his younger countryman, the protean David Bowie, and the parallels don’t stop there. Lawrence, memorably embodied by Peter O’Toole in David Lean’s Cinemascope epic, but I had mixed up my characters. Forgive me for briefly imagining a spiritual connection between John Lawrence, the titular protagonist of Nagisa Oshima’s chilly Merry Christmas, Mr. ![]()
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