Four days after Christmas I sat down with my close friend to watch "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence". The only thing I knew about the movie was that it prominently featured a soundtrack by Ryuichi Sakamoto. One of my favorite games is ASCII's L.O.L: Lack of Love. The origin of L.O.L was apparently Sakamoto himself according to Kenichi Nishi the game's director. Beyond the concept Sakamoto contributed sound design that went beyond immersion it was a wave that would completely submerge you. In 2023 Ryuichi Sakamoto passed away from a 9 year battle with multiple cancers. Like most guilty people, I have been making up for lost time in familiarizing every note of Sakamoto's legacy.
A track found on multiple CDs and Albums that I had become quite fond of was "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence". An eccentric name for a track, but maybe no more eccentric than "Water is Life" or "World Citizen -- I won't be disappointed". Only after trying to pull up "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" in a internet video call with a friend did I find a curious trailer that suspiciously shared the same name as the song I loved so much.
I refuse to summarize or recount the movie to you, the following narrative will be written under the premise that you have watched the movie (without checking your phone). If not because it would be talking down to you then as a gentle nudge to get you to watch a movie I think is very notable.
I think a less intentional movie would of had Mr. Lawrence tell Hara-san "merry Christmas". A movie with less honest intent in playing both sides; one willing to reduce conflict to just people are bad. Representing it simply as the shoe now on the other foot.
In someways this movie is constantly setting you up to think that. To reductively symbolize hurt feelings as frivolous. But I think how the two main relationships (Mr. Lawrence with Hara-san and Celliers with Yonoi) end up shows a level of significant asymmetry. A detail I think is often missing when making stories about war is that people hurt each other in different ways, some worse, some better. Tallying each up on a score board is trivial, which authors often understand. But frustratingly authors take that understanding and often create two disparate forces that somehow share the same methods of inflicting misery.
The movie itself has difficulty parsing ideas of malice through the characters. Most of the evil actors in the story are basically henchmen or reduced to army drones. Think the nameless soldier that tries to kill Cellier. Not putting so much on our main four characters definitely does make it easier to hold these elements in our head. I also think crucially it let's us empathize more easily. In our lives we rarely think of ourselves as malicious, and we find ourselves having to make amends for the rash and cruel actions of others. Which is represented by how Mr. Lawrence has to walk a thin line of advocating for his peers and admitting their fault in often the same breath.
No one wins from a conflict where neither participant has a goal. To build a rail road; to be the warden of your invaders; to resist your captors, all just to spend time still. spend time until the sense of dread in the losing war is no longer avoidable.
What it means to live in dread as all you have known rots is basically what it is like to live in a damn body. but you don't see me taking no damn prisoners. It's easy to be a saint in paradise. The Japanese POW camp was no paradise though. Haunted by men seeking not peace; but justice. Not just the people, even the climate is inhospitable. In stark contrast when Mr. Lawrence visits Hara-san as he is a prisoner, the beach is moderate. What does it say then that Mr. Lawrence can say "You're the victim of men who think they are right. Just as one day you and captain Yonoi believed absolutely you were right. The truth is of course, that nobody is right."? I basically do agree with his disposition, but I mean can a man in good conscious say that as his peer is to be put to death now that you're on the other side of the line.
I don't think I am right about this movie. But I can feel the presence of will; of intention. I just want to understand. Symmetry is perhaps, unobtainable.
"There are times when victory is very hard to take."There was no intention to the violence, and that is why justice was unobtainable. Men died without peace, and their murderers were adorned with medals. All medals are now hung in museums belonging to no one or are underneath the counter of pawn shops across the world. Being unobtainable is what this movie is all about.
though the movie's intentions still evades my grasp all the same.
What I have not been able to chase down however is if this movie is cynical or if its' just trying to be true to form. it certainly doesn't seem overly critical of its form; but maybe I am just confusing that with a lack of shame. Bowie's character makes a sacrifice that really had no significant effect beyond traumatizing those who bore witness.
What are we to do with knowing that violence is fruitless? What more could we do that we haven't gleamed during our tenure at recess in youth?
Hara-san tells them that he is father Christmas. But he isn't. Which like lol true. But to be literally drunk with power and to assume the impossible duty of being Santa. Maybe that is what makes Hara-san the good character, I don't know. Mr. Lawrence only tells Hara-san "Merry Christmas" as a prisoner. Reuniting after everyone Lawrence and Hara-san knew is dead, He doesn't return a "merry Christmas". I don;t know what that means, but certainly I don't feel like Mr. Lawrence came out the other side a fulfilled person.
Not that I am looking for a redemption of Mr. Lawrence. A redemption isn't necessary. But I have simply returned to where I started:
I think a less intentional movie would of had Mr. Lawrence tell Hara-san "merry Christmas".
This essay was mostly composed in a conversation with the friends I first mentioned watching the movie with. I have only added a preface, and elaborated on some more of my questions. I feel guilty for mostly just barraging you with questions never even I could be bothered to fully flesh out. But the nature of it is that I had just watched this movie and if I didn't commit this to word I would of forgotten it. I would of let it go. I could only hope that maybe I helped you get more out of this movie than you could of on your own.
