Prison Of War To French Comedy Make Up Arrow Academy’s June/July Slate

Summer maybe knocking on our doors, a certain deadly disease is keeping us indoors. Arrow Academy has some Summer loving they want to share with their June/July slate. They will have 3 releases which include a BAFTA-winning prisoner of war classic, an astonishing Japanese docudrama, and a tantalising French comedy.

First, in June, David Bowie and Tom Conti star in Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, 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. Produced by Jeremy Thomas (The Last Emperor, The Sheltering Sky), it was the first English-language film by Oshima (Death by Hanging, In the Realm of the Senses, Gohatto), a leading light of Japanese New Wave cinema, and provided breakthrough big-screen roles for comedian Takeshi Kitano and musician Ryuichi Sakamoto, who also composed the film’s hauntingly memorable BAFTA-winning score.

Then in July comes Hiroshima, a powerful evocation of the devastation wrought by the world’s first deployment of the atomic bomb and its aftermath, based on the written eye-witness accounts of its child survivors compiled by Dr. Arata Osada for the 1951 book Children Of The A Bomb: Testament Of The Boys And Girls Of Hiroshima. Hiroshima was produced and distributed outside of the studio system by the Japan Teachers’ Union following the mixed critical reception to Children of Hiroshima (1952), directed by Kaneto Shindo the previous year, the first dramatic feature to deal directly with the atomic bombing. Although sequences from the film were used in Alain Resnais’ classic of French New Wave cinema, Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959), it has been effectively out of circulation in Japan and the rest of the world since its original release in 1953 due to the force and political sensitivity of its message. This new High Definition presentation is the complete version, restoring the footage from the international edit that was released in the United States in 1955.

Lastly in July, Life is a Long Quiet River, an outrageously wicked comedy about two families from award winning debut filmmaker Étienne Chatiliez. This fast-paced satire became the most popular French comedy of the decade. A witty send up of class relations and family ties, Life Is a Long Quiet River was celebrated with a host of trophies at France’s César Awards.

Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence 15th June

In 1942, British officer Major Jack Celliers is captured by Japanese soldiers, and after a brutal trial, physically debilitated but indomitable in mind, is sent to a POW camp overseen by the zealous Captain Yonoi. 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, 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, a man possessing a surprising degree of compassion beneath his cruel façade.

SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS
• High Definition Blu-ray™ (1080p) presentation
• Original uncompressed stereo audio
• The Man Who Left His Soul on Film (1983), Paul Joyce’s 82-minute documentary profile of Nagisa Oshima
• The Oshima Gang (1983), a 30-minute documentary following the film’s cast and makers at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival
• Video interviews with producer Jeremy Thomas, screenwriter Paul Mayersberg, actor Tom Conti, and actor-composer Ryuichi Sakamoto
• Hasten Slowly (1996), a 60-minute documentary about the author of the film’s
autobiographical source novel
• Exclusive newly filmed interview with critic Tony Rayns
• Original theatrical trailer
• Image gallery
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Sam Hadley

FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Jasper Sharp.

JAPAN | 1983 | 123 MINUTES | DRAMA/WAR | COLOUR | 1.85:1 | ENGLISH /JAPANESE

HIROSHIMA 13 JULY
Hiroshima combines a harrowing documentary realism with moving human drama, in a tale of the suffering, endurance and survival of a group of teachers, their students and their families. It boasts a rousing score composed by Akira Ifukube (Godzilla) and an all-star cast including Yumeji Tsukioka (Late Spring, The Eternal Breasts), Isuzu Yamada (Throne of Blood, Yojimbo) and Eiji Okada (Hiroshima Mon Amour, Woman inthe Dunes), appearing alongside an estimated 90,000 residents from the city as extras, including many survivors from that fateful day on 6th August 1945.

SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS
• High Definition Blu-ray™ (1080p) presentation
• Original uncompressed audio
• Archive interview with actress Yumeji Tsukioka
• Hiroshima Nagasaki Download (2011), 73-minute documentary featuring interviews
with survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings now residing in the
United States, with an introduction by the director Shinpei Takeda
• New video essay by Jasper Sharp
• Newly commissioned artwork by Scott Saslow

FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Mick Broderick

JAPAN | 1953 | 104 MINUTES | DRAMA/WAR | B&W | 1.37:1 | JAPANESE | ENGLISH SDH

LIFE IS A LONG QUIET RIVER 20 JULY

The radiantly bourgeois Le Quesnoys with their immaculate children and perfect manners and the grubby, disreputable Groseilles are thrown together in absurd chaos by an act of revenge as they discover that twelve years prior their babies were switched at birth.

SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS:
• High Definition digital transfer
• High Definition Blu-rayTM (1080p) presentation
• Original Mono audio
• Newly translated optional English subtitles
• Archival interviews with director Étienne Chatiliez, actor André Wilms,
co-writer/co-producer Florence Quentin and producer Charles Gassot
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Scott Saslow

FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Jonathan Romney

FRANCE | 1988 | 99 MINUTES | COMEDY | B&W | 1.66:1 | FRENCH | ENGLISH SDH

About the Author

Paul

Administrator

The founder of The People's Movies, started the site 20th November 2008.The site has excelled past all expectations with many only giving the site months and it's still going strong. A lover of French Thrillers, Post Apocalyptic films, Asian cinema. 2009 started Cinehouse to start his 'cinema education' learning their is life outside mainstream cinema. Outside of film, love to travel with Sorrento, Guangzhou and Manchester all favourite destinations.Musically loves David Bowie, Fishbone, Radiohead.

Visit Website View All Posts