Cinema: Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence (1983)

David Bowie stars in Nagisa Oshima's 1983 Palme d'Or-nominated portrait of resilience, pride, friendship and obsession among four very different men confined in the stifling jungle heat of a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in Java during World War II.

In 1942, British officer Major Jack Celliers (Bowie) is captured by Japanese soldiers, and after a brutal trial sent, physically debilitated but indomitable in mind, to a POW camp overseen by the zealous Captain Yonoi (Ryuichi Sakamoto). Celliers' stubbornness sees him locked in a battle of wills with the camp's new commandant, a man obsessed with discipline and the glory of Imperial Japan who becomes unnaturally preoccupied with the young Major, while Lieutenant Colonel Lawrence (Tom Conti), the only inmate with a degree of sympathy for Japanese culture and an understanding of the language, attempts to bridge the divide through his friendship with Yonoi's second-in-command, Sergeant Hara (Takeshi Kitano), a man possessing a surprising degree of compassion beneath his cruel façade.
Our screening on Wednesday 21 January will be introduced by film journalist James Balmont.

>> Tickets are £15 standard and £12 members:

https://bookings.thegardencinema.co.uk/TheGardenCinema.dll/TSelectItems.waSelectItemsPrompt.TcsWebMenuItem_0.TcsWebTab_0.TcsPerformance_4597940.TcsSection_638

This shown in Screen 1 so let's meet in the Garden Bar downstairs. The screening starts at 18:00 - we'll catch up after the film.