Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (Japanese: ), also known in many European editions as Furyo (俘虜, Japanese for "prisoner of war"), is a 1983 British-Japanese wartime drama film directed by Nagisa Oshima, produced by Jeremy Thomas and starring David Bowie, Tom Conti, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Takeshi Kitano and Jack Thompson. The screenplay by Oshima with Paul Mayersberg was based on Sir Laurens van der Post's experiences as a Japanese prisoner of war during World War II as depicted in his works "The Seed and the Sower" (1963) and "The Night of the New Moon" (1970). Sakamoto also wrote
The Eclipse, or the Courtship of the Sun and Moon moons, hang in the night sky; a meteor shower is depicted using the ghostly figures of girls. The professor of astronomy, shocked by all he has witnessed, topples from the observation tower. "The Eclipse" has been remarked upon for its overt sexual symbolism. Christine Cornea posits that the film's primary theme, the clash of scientific logic with sexual desire, was also evident in Méliès' earlier films "A Trip to the Moon" and "The Impossible Voyage", and would become a prominent in many subsequent science-fiction films. Some scholars, interpreting the Sun and the Moon to be both male, have described the