The Lolita Complex: - Scholarly Commons Home

Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence is known for its sensitive rendering of
Van der Post’s reflections connected with “painful and poignant human
encounters with ‘the enemy’, the burden of shame” and “the magic of
tenderness in the midst of… terror wrought by man’s inhumanity to man”. 29
But it is also memorable for bringing together the musicians David Bowie,
David Sylvian of British band Japan (1974 – 1982), and Ryûichi Sakamoto of
the Japanese Yellow Magic Orchestra (or YMO, 1978 – 1984). Sakamoto, who
acted in a major role as Captain Yonoi, also wrote the movie’s score and
theme track, Forbidden Colours, for which Sylvian provided the vocal. The
presence of these iconic figures helped to establish this project as a cult film,
bringing to it a younger, fanatical audience, a type of following that would
be otherwise expected.
Bowie, Sylvian and Sakamoto, were at their peak in 1983 and were
equally popular in Japan as they were worldwide. All three artists had also
been instrumental in pre-empting and then formulating the Glam and New-
romantic movements in both the West and Japan. This marriage of minds
demonstrates a key relationship in regard to the Anglo-Japanese
transmigration of ideas that would eventually lead to the genre known as
Visual Kei. In this regard, although the Japanese visual movement has strong
links to Glam and New Romanticism, I argue that Visual Kei should not be
perceived as simply a Japanese copy of Western ideas. This progression was
also Japan’s own.
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