An acrylic painting on wood panel, titled 'Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence', of a featureless women sitting on the floor decorated in yellow flowers and a yellow scarf around her neck. A striped roman candle behind her is firing.

Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence

(1983, Nagisa Oshima)

This movie is a fantastic wartime drama with a lot of ambiguity and a killer soundtrack but it got me reflecting on the idea of the “man movie”. Not films about explosions or machoism, but rather those about the conditions/illnesses of living as male. I feel like you can’t live as a male in a patriarchy and not be a little fucked up by it. This movie, void of a female cast, sort of plays on that subject, that we are all victims of delusional men who think they are right but nobody is right about anything.


A screenshot from the movie 'Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence' of three men on their knees praying to an alter in a Japanese ceremonial hall shown from behind. An animated gif of a scene from the film 'Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence' showing the face of Major Jack Celliers (played by David Bowie). A screenshot of three men on their knees praying to an alter in a Japanese ceremonial hall shown from the front. From the film 'Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence'.

© 1983 - Shochiku Fuji