Quote:
Here’s a movie that is even stranger than it was intended to be. “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence” is about a clash between two cultures (British and Japanese) and two styles of military service (patriotic and pragmatic). That would be enough for any movie, and there are scenes when it is enough, and the movie works pretty well.

But then the movie makes another contrast that doesn’t work so well, a contrast between basic views of theatrical acting styles. British tradition suggests that, everything else being equal, actors should behave as if they were real people in a real situation. The Japanese tend toward a more overwrought acting style, made of screams and grimaces, histrionics and dramatizations.

Each tradition works well enough in a movie where it is the only tradition. But in a movie where British and Japanese are on the screen at the same time and are apparently sharing the same reality, the results look odd, and eventually undermine the film. We wonder, in some small irreverent corner of our minds, whether the soft-spoken British notice that the Japanese rant and rave over everything, including the weather, and whether the Japanese, in turn, find the British catatonic.

The movie is by Nagisa Oshima, the best-known of the younger Japanese directors, whose notorious “In the Realm of the Senses” (1976) began with a love affair between a businessman and a geisha and ended in a bloodbath of castration and suicide. He is clearly fascinated by relationships between authorities and victims and that’s the subject here.

The time is 1942, in a Japanese prison camp on Java, and the story concentrates on two pairs of officers. The British are Celliers (David Bowie), very upper crust, duty-bound, guilt-ridden, and Lawrence (Tom Conti), sensitive, bilingual, trying to translate not only the words but the values of the two races.

The Japanese are Yonoi (Ryuichi Sakamoto) of the warrior class, filled with pride and glory, and Hara (Takeshi), a sort of Japanese Falstaff with a streak of sadism. How these two pairs get along together will determine the fate of the British (which is complicated by their nominal leader, a blustering bully played by Jack Thompson). The movie develops the situation in a series of scenes that owe something to “Bridge Over the River Kwai.” Rules are made, forgotten, broken, then strictly enforced. Enemies admit at weak moments that they are all human beings, after all. But then there’s a breach of protocol and a crackdown from the top. The most rigid officers on each side (Celliers and Yonoi) have a sort of admiration for each other, which turns into a contest of wills.

This is interesting material, especially since Oshima plunges a little more deeply into the psychology of his characters than your average prisoner-of-war movie is likely to. There are hints of a homosexual attraction between Celliers and Yonoi, eventually leading to one of the movie’s most awkward moments — a parting in which the British soldier actually seems to be saying that both sides were right in the war and both sides were wrong.

It’s awkward, not because of the subject matter, but because of the contrasting acting styles. Here are two men trying to communicate in a touchy area and they behave as if they’re from different planets. The overstatement in the Japanese acting ruins the scene. It’s strange: Japanese acting styles never bother me in all Japanese movies (especially not when they’re modulated, as in the contemporary films of Kurosawa). It’s only when you have actors who are clearly on different wavelengths that the Japanese histrionics become distracting. What this movie needed was a diplomatic acting coach.

review by Roger Ebert on September 16, 1983

Merry.Christmas.Mr.Lawrence.1983.480p.BluRay.x264.AC3.mkv

General
Container:	Matroska
Runtime:	2h 3mn
Size:	2.00 GiB
DXVA:	Compatible
Minimum settings:	Met
Video
Codec:	x264
Resolution:	854x462
Aspect ratio:	1.85:1
Frame rate:	23.976 fps
Bit rate:	1 856 kb/s
Audio
English 5.1ch AC-3 @ 448 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/2BF4CF84029B483/Merry.Christmas.Mr.Lawrence.1983.480p.BluRay.x264.AC3.mkv

Language(s):English, Japanese
Subtitles:English,Chinese

The post Nagisa Ôshima – Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (1983) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

TV Guide writes:
Gowan McGland (Tom Conti) is a Scottish poet who is finding life something of a burden since his inspiration evaporated about five years ago. Now he is reduced to performing readings of his work to groups of adoring middle-aged women and bored college students, doing his best to take away the pain by sleeping with as many of his female fans as possible and drinking himself into a stupor. At the moment he is living in New England where his readings have gone down well, and his list of conquests has grown – but what if McGland were to actually fall in love, would that make him a changed man?

2.34GB | 1 h 40 min | 1024×576 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/E1D272092EC30C8/Reuben.Reuben.1983.576p.BluRay.AAC.x264-HANDJOB.mkv

Language:English
Subtitles:None

The post Robert Ellis Miller – Reuben, Reuben (1983) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Sir Paul, a distinguished author, blinded in a horrific accident, advertises for an amanuensis, an assistant to help him with his writing. He employs the amiable Jane Ryder to be his eyes as he revisits scenes from his past and works on what he intends to be his final opus. Jane appears to be ideal: attractive, intelligent, unruffled by her employer’s abrupt eccentricities. But, gradually, we come aware that Jane has another agenda. Incrementally, Sir Paul’s familiar surroundings are altered. Strange things happen around the house and he becomes increasingly dependent on his new assistant. Jane plays increasingly sadistic games until their relationship breaks down.

1.24GB | 1 h 27 min | 853×480 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/4028ACF77BF7703/A.Closed.Book.2010.DVDRip.x264-HANDJOB.mkv

Language:English
Subtitles:None

The post Raoul Ruiz – A Closed Book (2009) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Review Summary
The British/Canadian Full Circle is better known by its American title, The Haunting of Julia. The eponymous Julia, played by Mia Farrow, is driven to near-madness by the death of her daughter. Things don’t get much better when Julia and her husband move into a forbidding old mansion. The events leading up to her daughter’s horrible death threaten to repeat themselves, thereby explaining the film’s original title. Based on a Peter Straub story, Full Circle covers familiar ground, but fans of Gothic horror will be generously served. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

621MB | 01:37:16 | 712×356 | mkv

http://nitroflare.com/view/547BE15CA572490/Full_Circle.mkv

Language:English
Subtitles:French

The post Richard Loncraine – Full Circle AKA The Haunting of Julia (1977) first appeared on Cinema of the World.