‘What a funny face. Beautiful eyes though.’ – Jack Celliers
‘I wish I could sing.’ – Jack Celliers
There’s an old paradigm about musicians making great actors due to their experience of portraying the coolest motherfuckers on stage every night for a living. This has never been more true than in the wonderful case of David Bowie. Having trained as a mime before becoming the icon we remember him as, he had a leg up on most musicians-turned-actors in at least having some form of coaching. Furthermore, Mr Bowie also had an incredible gift of falling into roles perfect for him. Who else would you cast as Thomas Jerome Newton – an alien industrialist, corrupted by Earth’s excesses? Or as Nikola Tesla – a man who changed the world and knew what that power truly meant?
In many ways, ‘David Bowie the actor’ was continuously type-cast as ‘David Bowie the cultural icon’. In the majority of the films in which he appeared, that was the gimmick of his casting – stories solely exploring the concept of someone so otherworldly. Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, my personal favourite of his filmography, takes this idea a step further by focusing on the impact such a person has on the people around him. Despite the main cast being only five strong, the conflicts driving the story forward are grounded in what each of the other four project onto Bowie. Although, there is always a joy in hearing Bowie deliver such knowingly referential lines as the ones quoted at the top of the article.
The film takes place on the island of Java within a Japanese PoW camp during the Second World War. Tom Conti (the magical back heal doctor in the Dark Knight Rises) plays the titular Lawrence, a prisoner in the camp who, due to his knowledge of Japan and its culture, has gained an outsider status in the camp. He attempts to explain the culture differences to both his commanding officer Captain Hicksley (Jack Thompson – The Man from Snowy River, Breaker Morant) and the intensely violent Sgt Hara (Takeshi Kitano – Sonatine, Battle Royale, all round superstar director), but only provokes ire from Hicksley and a friendly derision from Hara.
Meanwhile, Jack Celliers (David Bowie – dude needs no introduction) is standing trial for guerrilla warfare and the PoW camp’s commander, Captain Yanoi (Ryuichi Sakamoto – doing double duty as both co-lead and composer of the film’s majestic soundtrack) has been asked to assist in the cross-examination. Of course, being David Bowie, it means that Jack Celliers is a completely magnetic individual – a detail that isn’t lost on Yanoi. During the trial, Yanoi is fascinated by Celliers and cannot take his eyes off him, leading some of the best eye-contact flirting this side of Before Sunrise. Celliers is found guilty and interned to the PoW camp giving obsession a chance to bloom in Yanoi, however, Celliers isn’t quite the kindred spirit that Yanoi anticipates.
Compared to his role in The Man Who Fell to Earth, Bowie’s performance as the rebellious Major Jack Celliers, could seem downright ordinary, but instead his approach ensures that Celliers is the most enigmatic cinematic soldier since T.E. Lawrence. Obviously, Bowie’s physical appearance accentuates this. He was always a very pretty man, but in 1983, during the height of Let’s Dance, Bowie had more than a passing resemblance to Peter O’Toole. This reference point definitely informs his performance and provides the audience with a strong sense of the free-spirit Celliers possesses.
Surprisingly, despite being billed as the lead, Bowie’s screentime is quite limited, hence why it is important to get over Celliers as an idea to audience as efficiently as possible. In conjunction with this, Bowie’s performance is extremely effective, managing to balance grace with rebelliousness in such a manner that his actions do not come across as insolence but more a greater emotional and spiritual understanding of the situation the prisoners find themselves in. And make no mistake, all the characters are prisoners in this film, even Captain Yanoi and Sgt Hara (in one case, figuratively and the other literally by the film’s end). Yanoi is a young and accomplished officer but not involved in the war effort with his peers due to his political alignments during a failed coup d’état in February 1936. Furthermore, he is held captive by his traditional upbringing and conservative beliefs. It is easy to see the similarities between Yanoi and the likewise tradition–obsessed author Yukio Mishima. As such, homosexuality is certainly an aspect of the internal conflict Celliers ignites in Yanoi, but his fascination is much deeper than that. Celliers has stirred something deeply fundamental in how Yanoi thinks of the world. While sexuality is a part of this, the film keeps this aspect of their relationship ambiguous although it is reflected in some of the B-plots of the film (not to mention David Sylvian’s vocal reworking of the main theme). As if to deeper ingrain the concept of Yanoi’s beliefs confining him, the film was released in Europe under the title Furyo, the Japanese word for ‘prisoner of war’.
The majority of the film focuses on the exploration of these themes through Lawrence’s conversations with various characters around the camp. Tom Conti is the actual backbone of the film and has arguably never given a better performance. Whereas Celliers is a cypher, Lawrence is completely a heart-on-sleeve character protesting for understanding in the binary environment he finds himself in. Conti portrays Lawrence with a weariness that betrays his time in more physical and spiritual captivity. Often, Lawrence debates the goings on around the camp with Sgt Hara and these scenes are all a joy to behold. Despite Conti not being able to speak Japanese (his lines were phonetically memorised), his chemistry with Kitano is a joy. Overall, Kitano gives the best performance in the film, balancing the threat of horrifying violence with the sort of comedic slovenliness that brings Toshiro Mifune’s role in Seven Samurai to mind.
The film is gorgeously put together. I find the title sequence utterly breathtaking. It is here that we are first introduced to the incredible main theme and the film marries it to a sweeping shot of Conti and Kitano walking through the camp. Similar breathtaking visual and aural cues can be found throughout the film, particularly those set during night time which are gifted with the most intense deep blues. It is here that the most haunting images of the film can be found.
When David Bowie passed away earlier this year, many articles were obviously written about the impact he had on societies across the world. Despite being primarily a musician, what the majority of these pieces remarked upon was the idea that the greatest thing that David Bowie accomplished was normalising people who were sees as outsiders in their culture, including the LGBT community. After listening to his records, this film is the greatest testament to that gift he bestowed on us.
Auteurs' Hors D'oeuvres 