Film Club: Oliver Jia / Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence (1983)
The Kyoto-based American researcher talks living on Japan, fighting randos on Twitter and Nagasa Oshima's masterpiece.
Welcome to the Lack of Taste Film Club, where we talk to non-cinephiles and non-professional cinephiles about themselves and the movies they love. You will find a different flavour to Film Club entries going forward. We want to get to know our guest more before we talk about their chosen film. So a general Q&A will come first, and the film comes second.
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Oliver Jia is a researcher and journalist based in Kyoto, Japan, who you can find on Twitter where he talks about geopolitics and pop culture. He also has a Substack called Foreign Perspectives. If you’ve ever followed him, you will also see him argue with strangers on these same topics. We talk to Oliver about that, living in Japan and his journalism, before we dive in to Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence.
How did you get into the world of journalism and into where you are right now?
I don't have any formal training in journalism, and in fact, I rather disliked writing for most public schools. However, I realized that once I could actually choose the subjects I'd be writing about, the whole thing came to me rather naturally. I wrote for my high school's newspaper, but at the same time, I was also being published on some defunct media websites. One was a long-gone video game music website where I'd review albums (provided to me for free in lieu of actually being paid), interview composers, write news updates, that sort of thing. I started a Medium blog which gave me a bit more freedom on wider topics, but it made practically no money.
Getting into the world of big-boy professional journalism actually didn't come to me until the end of 2019 when I pitched a freelance piece about an American soldier who had lived in North Korea for nearly 40 years to a specialist website about DPRK issues called NK News. I had actually met this American on Sado Island, Japan a few months before he passed away in 2017 and for the next two years, I was thinking about how I could turn it into a story. Things were pretty busy in my life as I was moving back and forth between the U.S. and Japan, but ultimately once I was settled in this part of the world permanently I could finally sit down and do more writing. So after that piece which got accepted by NK News, I began writing for them on a monthly basis and still do to this day. I've since been building my bylines and have been published by The Spectator and Asia Times among other outlets, though it's still a side hustle as I'm a full-time graduate student in international relations here in Kyoto.
I launched my Substack Foreign Perspectives with Oliver Jia this year and it's already becoming a smashing success with over 200 subscribers in just a few months. More people than I thought would be interested are also opting for a paid subscription, so I hope to continue this new venture of mine. My friends Noah Smith and Konstantin Kisin write some of the most successful Substacks on the platform, so what they've done has really inspired me with my own work. You don't have to go to journalism school to get into this profession and that's more apparent than ever now.
You currently live in Japan. What do people usually get right and wrong about the country, and why do you think a lot of people in the West are obsessed?
I think Westerners have always had a degree of fascination with Asia as a whole, though people often forget that it goes both ways. There are tons of Japanese people who get their perspective of America from Hollywood films and television shows just as we can get skewed perspectives of Japan from anime and video games. I plan on getting into this in a future Substack article, but I've noticed in recent years how Americans both on the political left and right like to use Japan to "prove" their respective agenda while ignoring the parts that would go against it.
For example, the right likes Japan for having stricter immigration policies and often praises this country for supposedly being "traditional," but conveniently forgets that this place produces some of the most popular pornographic videos in the world while also having just as much consumerism and materialism as the United States. Similarly, the left likes how Japan has strict gun laws and free healthcare, but eventually realizes that this country is no paradise for "woke" ideas like forced diversity. There are plenty of examples of both sides looking at Japan through blinders, but if you're super left-wing or super right-wing, you're inevitably going to find something that'll force you to hate the whole place.
My overall point is that Japan is Japan. It doesn't operate on the same societal rules or political spectrum that other countries have, while American culture wars certainly don't exist over here. I chose to live here because it's most aligned with my own values, but if anything Japan has just made me more of a political moderate over time.
In The Spectator, you argued why Oppenheimer should be released in Japan. It made me wonder what the consensus opinion is of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and in general Japan's role in World War II. Have you seen any Japanese pop culture that reflects this and how would they usually approach it, in contrast to the West?
The Japanese largely view the atomic bombs less as a reason to be angry at America, but more as a reason to be angry at the fact that they were drawn into the war in the first place. Of course, you'll always find some elderly people who are bitter toward the U.S., but the same can be said for elderly Americans who are still bitter toward the Japanese. Most take a more nuanced view and understand that the atomic bombs were a terrible event from a different time. Young Japanese people don't hate the U.S. at all and instead simply want their country to not make the same disastrous decisions again.
Films like Grave of the Fireflies and The Human Condition have for decades shown WWII from different angles, sometimes depicting how it affected the average Japanese citizen and sometimes depicting how Japan was an aggressor toward neighboring Asian countries. You'll for sure see some documentaries or films that take a more revisionist route, but again how is that any different from what many countries do with their own history? I'm tired of hearing this myth that Japan has "never apologized" or never seriously reflected on its role during the war because neither is true. That just goes back to what I said about people like Jake Adelstein and these other foreigners who have a specific agenda to push when it comes to Japan.
You're quite prominent on Twitter and often get into sparring matches with ideologues of the far left and the far right. Why do this and don’t you often find it exhausting when you have better things to do with your life?
I view Twitter primarily as a place to promote my writing and network with interesting people. My pre-existing following on Twitter is a big reason why my Substack has been so initially successful, I've met some very cool individuals in real life because we initially connected on social media. I would say that 90% of my interactions are mainly positive. Whether or not I engage with the other 10% depends on whether I think it'll help correct the record of false information people are spreading on a topic, such as things related to Japan or fake news around the war in Ukraine, which is another issue I'm very passionate about. It's also somewhat of a meme at this point that I'm simultaneously a communist, a fascist, and a centrist because I get accused of everything from ideologues on both sides of the aisle. I think it's utterly hilarious that some people are so incapable of nuance or moving past binary thinking that it becomes entertaining to screw around with them.
Out of all the films you've watched in your lifetime, why does Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence stand out?
There are plenty of WWII films, but far less about the POW experience in the Pacific Theatre and even fewer that capture the experience accurately. I think King Rat based on the James Clavell novel is the closest in portraying how horrible those conditions were and I highly recommend it, but Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence has even greater emotional resonance. It being a collaboration between Japan and the U.K. means that both sides get to be shown with appropriate nuance. The English dialogue among the Western actors actually feels realistic, which is a sharp contrast to how foreigners usually are in many Japanese films.
Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence is ostensibly about Allied POWs who struggle to survive at the hands of their Japanese captors, but it's also a story about friendship, cultural differences, and ultimately reconciliation. Many don't think of it as a Christmas film, but the holiday itself plays an important role in the key scene where Sgt. Hara pardons John Lawrence and Jack Celliers. Even as someone who isn't religious at all, I appreciate how it depicts Christian themes without being overly preachy.
I also think it's one of the very few "anti-war" films which actually feels anti-war. Oshima doesn't excuse the terrible things his country did, but he also shows that perhaps the wrong people were executed after the war's aftermath while those far more responsible got away. The film is neither anti-Japanese nor anti-Western, but it shows the absurdity of war and how it negatively affects everyone involved.
This was directed by Nagasa Oshima and his filmography, from In the Realm of the Senses to Diary of a Shinjuku Thief has a radical streak in him. Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence looks conventional in comparison. Do you think, for Oshima, this feels like an artistic compromise from the edgy and sexualised aesthetics that made him prominent? Or does this feel like the kind of film this director would normally make?
I think it's inevitable that many "radical" directors mellow out over time and become less angry with age. Oshima was in his 50s when he directed Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence and as you said it's a far more conventional film than his previous works. But I think it's less of a compromise and more of what's appropriate to tell the story. After you make something as controversial as In Realm of the Senses, I don't think you can really push the envelope much further. But Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence doesn't need hardcore sex scenes in order for its homoerotic undertones to be powerful. Even then, we're not entirely sure if what Ryuichi Sakamoto's character feels for David Bowie's character is one of sexual desire or spiritual desire. Probably a little bit of both.
But that's why I like Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence so much. There's a lot of cultural and historical subtext there that becomes very rewarding upon subsequent rewatches and I always seem to find something new with it. If you're a WWII history buff or someone who has lived with both Eastern and Western culture like me, it's especially compelling.
Let me just say I really liked the film, much of which is because of how austere its message of enemies reconciling after painful friendships. How does this speak to the way that Japan view the war, upon its release?
People need to realize that there are a ton of different interpretations of Japan's role during WWII in this country. I very much dislike this extremely generalized view a lot of Westerners have about how Japanese people reflect upon the war. People have been debating that topic here for literally decades, right from the moment Japan surrendered until now. The idea that all or even the majority of Japanese people subscribe to revisionist views about war crimes or that the government has "never apologized" is simply untrue.
Nagisa Oshima was a leftist and like many of his contemporaries directed films that were angry criticisms of Japanese society. As such, Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence is a pretty explicit condemnation of Japan being the aggressor during WWII. Scenes such as John Lawrence criticizing the arbitrary rules of the POW camp and his speech to Celliers about Japan being a "nation of anxious people" who can't do anything individually but went "insane en masse" are clearly Oshima's views being expressed on screen. Since most of the film is in English, an uninformed viewer might think this to be a Western critique of Japan, but nope. It's actually a Japanese director criticizing his own country and there are plenty of other films such as Masaki Kobayashi's The Human Condition which explore similar themes.
I think the performances, particularly from David Bowie, Tom Conti and Takeshi Beat are quite magnetic. The latter, I believe, has some of the greatest character development that I've ever seen in movies. He has this jagged presence, but one that possesses a lot of gravitas about his participation in an atrocity.
Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence indeed has one of the best ensemble casts ever put together for a film and it's not something that could easily be achieved today. I think Tom Conti is hugely underrated as an actor, but I'm glad that his recent appearance as Albert Einstein in Oppenheimer showed a new generation of viewers how talented he is. Christopher Nolan has cited Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence as one of his favourite films, so it's no coincidence that he wanted to use Conti, who also appeared in The Dark Knight Rises.
What can you say about David Bowie that hasn't been said already? The man always had a huge ray of charisma in everything he did, whether it was singing, appearing in music videos, acting on stage, or being part of a film. Jack Celliers is easily one of his best performances though, and the way that he's able to act with his eyes alone is a talent that few actors have. Bowie is usually how most people in the West discover Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence and it's a big reason why it hasn't faded into total obscurity.
Beat Takeshi is another crucial part of the film and it was also notable for being one of his first serious performances. People in Japan typically associate Beat Takeshi as a sharp-tongued comedian with being a director who makes artistic movies, but that was especially true in the 1980s. There's a famous anecdote where he snuck into a theatre to see people's reactions and was completely dismayed to see them laughing every time he appeared on screen. I guess it's similar to Robin Williams playing the villain in Christopher Nolan's remake of Insomnia. In any case, I think Beat Takeshi and Tom Conti have fantastic chemistry together, and that's not an easy achievement considering that both had to act phonetically in each other's respective languages.
I even think Ryuichi Sakmaoto's performance is underrated. The man himself notably didn't like how his acting turned out, but he was being too hard on himself. During WWII there were plenty of Japanese POW camp commandants who could barely speak English or did so in a very stilted way. Sakamoto being less confident with his English at the time actually helped in the performance being more realistic. There are moments where he flubs a couple of lines and it's pretty obvious to me that those were intentionally left in. His character is meant to be someone who's trying to put on a masculine facade for Celliers and the other POWs, and Sakamoto captures that aspect beautifully. Another actor wouldn't have the same effect.
We cannot talk about this movie without mentioning Ryuichi Sakamoto's score. It is Mr Lawrence's most famous aspect, and for good reason. It is a really simple score that's melancholic and optimistic. I know that you have the soundtrack at home, and I'm of the opinion that soundtracks can sometimes be good outside of the film, but how does it stand on its own?
Yes, I think the music to Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawerence is arguably even more famous than the film itself. The main theme has been covered hundreds of times, including by Sakamoto himself in both piano and orchestral form. But the original electronic version of the movie is one of the most haunting compositions I've ever listened to, and it achieves an almost psychedelic effect. The synthesizer score makes us feel like we're in an alien world away from normal human civilization, which is how many POWs described their experiences. Some of the best aural moments to me are also during the extended flashback sequence where Celliers reveals his troubled past.
I have the soundtrack both on vinyl in its original pressing and on the 2013 expanded CD version which has all the previously unreleased cues. David Sylvian's vocal cover of the theme "Forbidden Colors" is a beautiful interpretation of Sakamoto's melody. I listened to it for the first time in high school when I saw the film, and that's how I went down a rabbit hole of David Sylvian and Ryuichi Sakamoto's other works, as well as their associated acts with artists like Holger Czukay, Mark Isham, and others.
As to whether or not the score stands on its own, I think it's going to depend on how much you like electronic music. If you're familiar with the minimalism of Ryuichi Sakamoto's other works I think it's a wonderful standalone listen, but those who prefer something more conventional would probably be better suited to one of the piano or orchestral covers of the main theme which can be found on many of his albums. Sakamoto unfortunately lost his long battle with cancer earlier this year, but toward the end of 2022, he did one more concert. It was an edited livestream of him doing solo piano performances of his most famous works and of course Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence was included. You can tell that he knew it would be the last time he'd ever perform the theme and he put his entire soul into it despite his poor health. Sakamoto always understood the value of technology and I'm glad that his final concert is preserved for future generations.