Japan, Great Britain

"A tour de force which haunts the memory long after viewing." Mail on Sunday. "Brilliant performances, fine score, films don't come much richer." City Limits. "...moving, memorable ...a heartening tribute to the tenacity of the human spirit." Daily Mail. "...one of the most majestic musical scores in years... A most remarkable achievement... an event ...l long to see it again." What's On and Where to G.o "...A powerful, rich, eerie film." Financial Times. "Extraordinary." The Times. "Should not be missed." Sunday Telegraph. It is 1942, in a barren and hopeless prisoner-of-war camp on the occupied island of Java. Major Lawrence (Tom Conti) is the Japanese speaking go-between, doing his best to keep the peace between his fellow prisoners, the proud camp commandant, Captain Yonoi (Ryuichi Sakamoto) and his brutal aide Sergeant Hara (Takeshi Kitano). Jack Celliers - brilliantly by David Bowie - is a reckless New Zealander who refuses to be broken by the harsh regime of his captors. The catalogue of humiliations and brutality that follows - including several beatings, two hara-kiris, a decapitation and death by burial to the neck - is not gratuitously horrific. It is the means by which the film reveals that even amid the barbarisms of war, the only way forward is for man to understand his enemy, however vast and dangerous the gulf between them. This is a film that looks at the human experience with comparison, vision, and power.