Letters From Iwo Jima
2006. Subtitled. Directed by Clint Eastwood. Screenplay by Iris Yamashita. Starring Ken Watanabe, Kazunari Ninomiya, and Ryo Kase.
Letters from Iwo Jima, Clint Eastwood's companion piece to Flags of Our Fathers from earlier this year, is an impressive film but ultimately it is a film you admire more than you love. Flags, which I have yet to see, looked at the WWII battle of Iwo Jima from the American side. While doing research for that film, Eastwood came across the story of a Japanese general and decided to examine the same battle from the Japanese side as well. Filmed in a fascinated muted gray where everything looks dreary and there is little hope from the start for these soldiers, Letters is an engrossing and well directed film. It is intense and disturbing; many times both my stepdad and myself were literally flinching in our seats at the actions and sounds on the screen. It does not shy away from the brutal reality of war or the debatable Japanese code of honor of the time. It is a powerful film that puts us in the middle of the war, surrounded by violence, and as Americans really makes us struggle to find a simple good and bad side. I never got terribly close to any of the characters. So I watched with horror for mankind but with only a few exceptions, I felt no more pain for one character than another. There is a moment in the film when Japanese soldiers listen to a letter an American mom wrote to her son and we see on their faces recognition of the humanity and similarity of their enemy; quite unlike the savage they were told they were fighting. This same scene could have taken place in Flags of Our Fathers and have been equally effective there. War is easier when you demonize the people you are killing; to have to look at them as sons and fathers with similar needs and desires makes it that much tougher to pull the trigger.
My grade: A-
Letters from Iwo Jima, Clint Eastwood's companion piece to Flags of Our Fathers from earlier this year, is an impressive film but ultimately it is a film you admire more than you love. Flags, which I have yet to see, looked at the WWII battle of Iwo Jima from the American side. While doing research for that film, Eastwood came across the story of a Japanese general and decided to examine the same battle from the Japanese side as well. Filmed in a fascinated muted gray where everything looks dreary and there is little hope from the start for these soldiers, Letters is an engrossing and well directed film. It is intense and disturbing; many times both my stepdad and myself were literally flinching in our seats at the actions and sounds on the screen. It does not shy away from the brutal reality of war or the debatable Japanese code of honor of the time. It is a powerful film that puts us in the middle of the war, surrounded by violence, and as Americans really makes us struggle to find a simple good and bad side. I never got terribly close to any of the characters. So I watched with horror for mankind but with only a few exceptions, I felt no more pain for one character than another. There is a moment in the film when Japanese soldiers listen to a letter an American mom wrote to her son and we see on their faces recognition of the humanity and similarity of their enemy; quite unlike the savage they were told they were fighting. This same scene could have taken place in Flags of Our Fathers and have been equally effective there. War is easier when you demonize the people you are killing; to have to look at them as sons and fathers with similar needs and desires makes it that much tougher to pull the trigger.
My grade: A-
posted by Keith Allison at 1:34 PM
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