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Letters
from Iwo Jima
Genre: Drama
Rated: R
Directed
by: Clint Eastwood
Starring: Ken Watanabe, Kazunari
Ninomiya, Tsuyoshi Ihara, Ryo Kase, Shido Nakamura
Released by: Warner
Bros.
In
Short: Clint
Eastwood’s masterful companion piece to
his “Flags of Our Fathers” is another
look at the World War II battle of Iwo Jima,
but told from the Japanese point of view. |
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War is Hell, From Either Side
Experiencing Iwo Jima
from a Different Perspective
by
Jenny Peters
Despite
being well past the retirement age, 76-year-old Clint
Eastwood continues to be one of Hollywood’s strongest
forces, a filmmaker whose deft touch and keen eye make
moviegoers look at an oft-told subject with new eyes.
He’s
done that masterfully with “Letters from Iwo Jima,”
the film he made in tandem with last October’s fine
“Flags of Our Fathers,” shooting both movies
at the same time (please note, these are two completely
different movies despite being made by the same director
and dealing with the same subject matter, albeit told
from opposing sides of the battle). While “Flags”
told the story from the American side, “Letters”
looks at the bloody World War II battle for the tiny Pacific
island as seen from the Japanese point of view.
Eastwood’s
film (told in Japanese with English subtitles) takes us
deep into the hearts and minds of the Japanese soldiers
who were ordered to keep the island at all costs. It is
based on the real letters written by the commanding officer,
General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, who realizes even before
the battle begins that it is a lost cause despite his
brilliant military planning. The script by Iris Yamashita
and Paul
Haggis also took inspiration from the few surviving
Japanese soldiers to tell the story of the young men who
physically fought the battle, like Saigo, a lowly foot
soldier who just wishes he could stop digging caves in
the heat and get home to his wife and new baby. Soldiers
express divergent opinions on the Japanese code of “honor
above all else” and show disparate reactions when
the battle actually commences. This is accomplished with
first-rate acting across the board, especially by Ken
Watanabe as the general.
The
cinematography is unforgettable as well, as Eastwood chose
to make the film with an almost black-and-white look,
removing much of the color to create a starkness that
harkens back to classic war films like Stanley Kubrick’s
“Paths of Glory.”
The
film evokes “Paths of Glory” in another key
way, by expressing the futility and insanity of war without
resorting to obvious or preachy moments. Instead, Eastwood
simply allows the brutal events to play out as they surely
must have, with the result being one of the finest movies
ever made, about war or otherwise.
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