In the 2017 documentary Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda, the late Sakamoto recalls that when he received Nagisa Ōshima’s invitation to act in his forthcoming feature film, his excitement and vitality were so overwhelming that, rather than just accepting the offer, he replied, “only if you let me score the film, too”. This seemingly destined challenge marked both Sakamoto’s acting debut and his first film score which became so iconic that it transformed Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (a.k.a. Furyo) from a draconian wartime narrative into a tuneful homoerotic melodrama. Surely, the film is also associated with musical cinematography due to its co-star, David Bowie, yet another stellar multi-hyphenate and arguably Sakamoto’s Western counterpart. The pairing of these two striking presences within Ōshima’s distinct visual style of stark landscapes and close-ups leaves one with a nostalgic sense of commemoration, particularly for forbidden colours. [1]

Loosely based on the autobiographical novel The Seed and the Sower by Afrikaner Lourens van der Post, the film is set in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in Java during 1942 where Allies officers are held captive at the height of World War II. The story begins when Major Jack Celliers (David Bowie) is brought to stand trial before a Japanese military court, narrowly escaping the death penalty and subsequently being transferred to the camp commanded by Captain Yonoi (Ryuichi Sakamoto). Upon their first meeting at the trial, Yonoi becomes obsessively — and indeed understandably — infatuated with the recalcitrant, untroubled and enigmatic Celliers. As the film progresses, Yonoi’s repressed desire for Celliers intensifies, creating tension and turmoil that affects not only Celliers’ level-headed comrade, Lieutenant Colonel John Lawrence (Tom Conti), and Yonoi’s loyal Sergeant Hara (Takeshi Kitano) — and eventually disrupts the entire camp.

At first glance, the film appears to hinge on strict binaries — East and West, good and evil, homosexuality and heterosexuality, and subjection and domination, emphasised both contextually and artistically. In a 1983 interview, for instance, Bowie noted how the film stands on a fine-tuned juxtaposition of the Japanese actors’ stylised performances and the Westerns’ neorealism, acknowledging that a Western-made version of the film would have been a total antithesis of this Japanese sensibility. However, Ōshima’s goal was not to reinforce these stark contrasts but to unravel their complex entanglements beyond the sociocultural norms, particularly regarding honour, ethics, spirituality and sexuality. The film, hence, blends the harsh realities of war, violence, and toxic masculinity — with scenes of prisoners witnessing seppuku, dehumanisation of homosexuality, curfews, forced starvation, and arbitrary power abuse from beating to execution — with moments of affinity, solidarity, and bromance — including Lawrence’s candour and sympathy with the ‘other side’, Celliers' secret food distribution despite a fasting order, Hara's Christmas Eve absolution of Lawrence and Celliers, and Yonoi's deep affection for Celliers. The relationships among these four men further complicate power dynamics: Lawrence, the only Japanese-speaking prisoner, serves as the moral compass while Celliers, tormented by past guilt and defiant against oppression, exposes the futility of life and death; Hara, more royalist than the king, tests the boundaries of authority while Yonoi does anything to preserve his sense of order, including punishing an innocent person for a crime in the absence of guilty. Through this growing palpable tension Furyo evolves into a character-driven drama where internal conflicts are as intense as the war itself, with invisible battles fought within each man.

It is fair to say that, in this all-male war film featuring no women and centred on repressed male homosexual desires, the true protagonist is hegemonic masculinity — constantly claiming, destroying, and rebuilding itself in a vicious circle. This is most evident in the renowned 'kiss scene,' where Celliers risks his life by stepping forward and kissing Yonoi to save Group Captain Hicksley (Jack Thompson) and the other prisoners from Yonoi’s hubristic wrath. The kiss feels like the film’s climax, the centre of gravity that makes all other events centripetal to this moment, an eruption that spouts all the tabus and closeted thoughts. And of course, unlike the kiss that awakens sleeping beauty, this unforeseen smack to heteronormativity does not go unpunished; Yonoi collapses instantly, and Celliers, after his 'diabolic' deed, is buried alive.

In contemporary media studies, ‘bury your gays’ describes the trope of disproportionately killing off gay characters. In Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, Yonoi literally buries his gay. And with Celliers, feelings, truth, and justice are buried, too. However, the final scene leaves us with sorrow rather than fury, when the banality of evil is seen on Sergeant Hara’s closed-up face who, four years later, poignantly hails “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence!”, the night before his execution as a war criminal. Because what Lawrence aptly says to Hara remains ever relevant: “We all are the victims of men who think that they are right.”

[1] Forbidden Colours, the vocal version of the main soundtrack sung by David Sylvian, references Yukio Mishima’s 1951 novel of the same name, which explores the clash between samurai ideals and same-sex love.