posted on 2023-05-18, 21:37authored byKatsuhiko Suganuma
In this essay, I examine some key elements of 1983 iconoclastic classic Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, directed by Ôshima Nagisa, that potentially prevent it from being recognized under the rubric of queer cinema. Focusing on the narratives of failure and shame, I point to the ways in which Ôshima's film unsettles and shatters the processes of subject formation of potentially homosexual characters, particularly that of Captain Yonoi. I also suggest the possibility of Merry Christmas as being instrumental in leading audiences continuously to ponder the nature of queer desire. As one of the first visual depictions deploying the discourse of homo-eroticism within the contexts of cross-cultural contact between Japan and the West, I argue that the film continues to be "off-genre," dis-located and left fleeting somewhere among the peripheral fringe of that genealogy we now accept as Japanese queer cinema.
History
Publication title
Reconstruction
Volume
16
ISSN
1547-4348
Department/School
School of Humanities
Publisher
Reconstruction
Place of publication
United States
Rights statement
Copyright 2016 The Author
Repository Status
Open
Socio-economic Objectives
Other culture and society not elsewhere classified