Letters From Iwo Jima Movie
Storyline
TAGLINES
From the director of "Flags of our Fathers" comes the completion of the Iwo Jima saga
The battle of Iwo Jima seen through the eyes of the Japanese soldiers.
From Clint Eastwood, director of FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS, the battle of Iwo Jima seen through the eyes of the Japanese soldiers.
From the director of "Flags of our Fathers" comes the story of the battle for Iwo Jima told through the eyes of the Japanese soldiers.
The island of Iwo Jima stands between the American military force and the home islands of Japan. Therefore the Imperial Japanese Army is desperate to prevent it from falling into American hands and providing a launching point for an invasion of Japan. General Tadamichi Kuribayashi is given command of the forces on the island and sets out to prepare for the imminent attack. General Kuribayashi, however, does not favor the rigid traditional approach recommended by his subordinates, and resentment and resistance fester among his staff. In the lower echelons, a young soldier, Saigo, a poor baker in civilian life, strives with his friends to survive the harsh regime of the Japanese army itself, all the while knowing that a fierce battle looms. When the American invasion begins, both Kuribayashi and Saigo find strength, honor, courage, and horrors beyond imagination.
| Ken Watanabe | General Kuribayashi |
| Kazunari Ninomiya | Saigo |
| Tsuyoshi Ihara | Baron Nishi |
| Ryo Kase | Shimizu |
| Shido Nakamura | Lieutenant Ito |
| Hiroshi Watanabe | Lieutenant Fujita |
| Takumi Bando | Captain Tanida |
| Yuki Matsuzaki | Nozaki |
| Takashi Yamaguchi | Kashiwara |
| Eijiro Ozaki | Lieutenant Okubo |
| Nae | Hanako |
| Nobumasa Sakagami | Admiral Ohsugi |
| Luke Eberl | Sam |
| Sonny Saito | Medic Endo |
| Steve Santa Sekiyoshi | Kanda |
| Clint Eastwood |
8.10 out of 10 (37072 votes)
Visitor Reviews
Patriotism vs Opportunism
posted on 24 Aug 2009The Purple Heart, the American flag, a letter from Iwo Jima written by a close Marine comrade to my mother describing the events that led to my father's death, are some of the only tangible memories I have of my father who was killed in action March 7, 1945, on Iwo Jima. I have lived my life knowing my father was a hero in giving his life for his country. The sentiments about War roll in and out like tidal waves in this country. Sometimes Americans are the heroes and the country is flooded with American flags. Now it seems with the movies "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters from Iwo Jima" the focus is on the latter. Yes, the movie has its attributes and Clint Eastwood is the hero for distracting us from the American heroes and focusing on War as seen through the eyes of the enemy. His portrayal of the Japanese and their families is poignant to say the least, but it leaves Americans feeling as though they were the perpetrators of the War.
American film making at its sharpest and most astute.
posted on 18 Aug 2009Clint Eastwood is renown as an "American film maker" one who is clearly patriotic and dare I say has been indoctrinated by republic and conservative methods. My theory is further validated in such films like Unforgiven, Million dollar baby and most recently his counter part to the Iwo Jima saga Flags of our fathers. Initially I walked into the theater with a sense of low expectations despite the rave reviews from various prolific film critics. With in the first half an hour I became largely aware of the fact that Mr. Eastwood understood the Japanese culture. He truly displayed an enormous degree of pathos and respect which also brought me to the conclusion that Clint can document his own foreign study without the need of integrating it with American ideologies. In comparison to the works of Akira Kurosawa, Letters from Iwo Jima has a delicate balance of exciting battle scenes and moral redemption. The visual aspect of the film is a desaturated colour which almost seems to be black and white, however, this palate is a metaphorical effect that contradicts both perspectives of war, if you are aware of the term nothing is black and white you will comprehend what I am stating. In retrospect Letters is a juxtaposition of brutal reality and lyrical beauty that run parallel with each other. Boldly honest and emotionally riveting Letters from Iwo Jima is one of the most poignant examples of vulnerability and hope in the medium of film.
The Japanese story of Iwo Jima.
posted on 12 Aug 2009In our country the raising of the American flag on Iwo Jima is immortalized in the famous photo, and in a large sculpture in Northern Virginia, in the D.C. area. This movie tells the story of the Japanese men who were on the island, waiting for the inevitable attack. We know it came, we know the outcome, as history tells.The movie depicts the Japanese soldiers as not very different from the American soldiers. In the slow character development we learn that some were bakers, others store owners. One was exiled from an elite branch because he refused to shoot a family's dog that was barking too much back on the mainland.We see that the men preparing for the invasion by the American troops were under-supplied in food, water, ammunition, and air support. Disintery was so bad that some died of it. Most of them knew that they would never go home again.While most of the movie is told in 1944, in Japanese with English subtitles, short scenes in present day, 2005, begin and end the movie. We see Japanese exploring one of the caves that had been used for refuge 50 years earlier during the American bombardment. A buried sack is found, and in it a large number of "letters from Iwo Jima", never having been sent home. Presumably the contents of these letters formed the basis for the story in the movie.
Clint, your movie sucked.
posted on 12 Aug 2009I was into it until the Marine executed the two soldiers. It made me so mad off that I turned off the TV. Thanks for making out Marines look like piles of crap. You totally suck. I hope you rot in Carmel. This thing is making me write a whole lot more that I wanted to. I don't want to write anything else. You are over paid and should be run out of town. I heard that veterans were mad about the picture, but I had no idea why. Now I know. You really disappointed me. Some of you Dirty Harry stuff was pretty good. I hear that the S.F.P.D actually retired you badge. They should take that thing and throw it into the ocean. That was one of the most disturbing films that I have ever seen. Yo should be ashamed of yourself. I know war sucks, but to portray the Marines as straight up murderers was sick.
Much like 'Flags', an enjoyable but flawed piece of cinema (spoilers)
posted on 10 Aug 2009The point of Letters From Iwo Jima is a little obvious. It tells us that the Japanese were human beings too. Well, I'm sure any intelligent individual would have already known that. But does the film tell us anything more than this? I'm not sure that it does. Therefore I can't add myself to the list of people who hail Letters From Iwo Jima as a masterpiece. In fact, I think Flags of Our Fathers may well be the better film. It at least attempted to try and do something different with the traditional war flick. It tried to open it up and show some sort of historical perspective. And although Letters From Iwo Jima does this to a certain extent, it didn't do it enough for my liking.In Letters From Iwo Jima Eastwood seems so burdened by his desire to show the Japanese as human beings that the film often feels manipulative. For instance, there's a scene where two Japanese soldiers, tired of fighting, decide to surrender to the Americans. The very second that the prisoners were left alone with two Yanks I knew what was going to happen. But despite that, I kept on saying to myself, 'Don't shoot them'. But of course, the Americans do indeed shoot the Japanese soldiers. You can hear the film shouting at you: 'Look, we did bad things too! We're as bad as each other!' But although the Allies did indeed do terrible things, the film doesn't really show the other side of the coin. We see some of the Japanese officers mistreating their soldiers, but we don't see any of the terrible things that were done to American soldiers – the only piece of up close violence is when some Japanese soldiers repeatedly bayonet an American, and that's mainly out of surprise and fear, which is perfectly understandable in a combat situation.However, unlike some people, I didn't find it particularly dubious that a couple of the 'good' Japanese characters had some sort of connection to America - The General and Baron Nishi both have spent time there. I think the point the film is trying to make here is that these individuals have the experience to know that the Americans are people just like them, that the government is lying is when it makes them out to be monsters and cowards. Therefore the ordinary person, who doesn't have the life experience of these characters and who is constantly bombarded by propaganda, believes the lies that are spat out. But the scene where an American soldier is captured by Baron Nishi and we find out that he isn't the scum the Japanese government has made him out to be fell a little flat for me. Again it felt a little laboured. I'm just not sure that it would be so easy for a large group of people to deprogram years of nonsense and lies.And it disappointed me that the film didn't investigate the motivations of the Japanese in any depth. We see that the ordinary man was forced into combat – there's a good scene where the film's main character, a baker, is forced to look pleased when he's called up for duty – but the motivations of the government itself are left unsaid. As a consequence you don't fully understand the crap the Japanese were fed. And I think it would be a lot easier to sympathise with the characters if we were given a fuller picture – the snippets that we're given, like the baker being called up and the soldier who's forced to kill a woman's dog by a superior, help somewhat, but the 'bad' characters remain screaming stereotypes. What was their motivation? What works well, though, is the portrayal of the misery the Japanese soldiers had to go through. Living in caves like animals, they certainly didn't have an easy time of it. And then having hardly any ammunition, little water and virtually no food you wonder how they had the will to fight at all. And that's what makes their story tragic – that so many lives were lost for nothing. And I couldn't help but feel anger when a large group of Japanese soldiers held grenades to their chest and blew themselves up. You want to be able to break them out of their spell, to tell them that their deaths are without reason. And I guess it's telling that it was in these sorts of scenes, ones were you feel like you're not being manipulated, that I felt the most sympathy for the Japanese. The film didn't need to try as hard as it did to communicate the waste of the conflict, you can feel it completely in moments like the one described.Another moment that I found powerful was when we see a Japanese pillbox get attacked by American soldiers – they attack it with a flamethrower. We actually see this scene first in Flags of Our Fathers. Therefore, rather cleverly I think, Eastwood is asking us where our priorities lie. In the previous film we maybe cheered or smiled or were pleased that the enemy died, but here we're confronted with the reality – it wasn't the enemy that were killed, it was a group of ordinary people from a different country who were unlucky enough to get caught up in the conflict. There's no joy in their deaths. It's simply a waste.Now if the entire film garnered this response from me, I would maybe join in with the chorus that is proclaiming it as a masterpiece. As it stands, though, it's merely a very good film. (I honestly think people are giving this film special dispensation because Eastwood filmed it entirely from the Japanese perspective and because he filmed it in their language. Yes that's very admirable, but it doesn't erase the film's shortcomings.)
Hell Is Full of Sadness
posted on 04 Aug 2009Clint Eastwood should win the Oscar again for his formidable and sensitive exploration of the darkness of war. The film takes its time developing a storyline that directly presents links to every man in the world... Here is a collection of types that are put together in the middle of a hopeless and catastrophic situation: People who must either serve or die, willingly or unwillingly, with no way out or opportunity to discuss alternatives.Through the eyes of the baker, we see how the Japanese troops prepared themselves for the arrival of the Americans. We learn that their options were limited, and that for them the entire experience was as hellish as it was for most of the Americans. Their convictions and their level of commitment is different, but in the end, the results are pretty much the same: the death of a person's soul.What is barely hinted at in "Flags of Our Fathers" explodes here. The battle scenes are among some of the best ever put together in a movie, the claustrophobia and horror of the cave experience eats away at whatever little hope we have for anything even remotely close to a good ending. The spirit of these men face horrors no one should ever have to witness, and their choices are all tainted by the greed and the evils of others.There are scenes of magnificent dignity as Watanabe's officer shows us the dilemma of being in his position, as he tries to satisfy the demands placed on him by his country, and his respect for human life. There is the figure of the baker, as the man who just happens to be in the middle of a place he can't understand.The film is powerful, sensitive, and non judgmental, a tribute to both sides of the conflict, a time in history that should have never happened, and should never happen again... It's full of monumental sadness and inspiration for us to change things for the better.
A great FILM of 2006…
posted on 04 Aug 2009A great FILM of 2006…I loved the movie "Flag of our Fathers". And without any doubt I loved this one too.War movie always appeal to me. And moreover Clint Eastwood is my Favorite Director.This movie is very well made and well Directed. The music is also good. I wont say that here is anything so called NEW in this war movie, but still it is VERY GOOD.The performances are Excellent. The screenplay is also TOP-Notch.This is a GREAT film. Just don't get your HOPES so HIGH that you might get disappointed.9/10
Eastwood's best work to date.
posted on 04 Aug 2009This is not a war film that will be accessible to every viewer, especially those who are only used to soaking up the typical American propaganda war films of the past half century. Of course there are going to be those right winged/ 'wannabe pushovers' who will automatically be persuaded to call out this film as: "rewriting history," when, in reality, they have NO clue/ concept of what actually occurred during this part of history from the POV of the Japanese soldiers, (and still consider any "enemy" to the US as nothing more than "savages.") The fact of the matter is, the film is a true masterpiece of artistic cinema. Many people seem to forget the notion that film = art. "Letters" is NOT a documentary film; it is a filmic portrait of a generally unknown/misunderstood piece of modern history. I would say this subtle masterpiece is Eastwood's best work to date.
Brilliant - A must see movie
posted on 23 Jul 2009Not since Akira Kurosawa's "Rashômon" has anyone attained such exquisite insight into the human condition, having read "Flags of our Fathers" and growing up, having veterans tell me of their experiences on Iwo Jima,I would look back at them in awe at the fact that they were here sharing their very own story,and many times they to could not believe they were alive.It is amazing to see the sensitivity that Mr.Eastwood imbued into both tales. The scriptwriter Iris Yamashita brought me to tears only at the end of the film with the conundrum we still live with today.Peoples dreams are both sacred and profane and lives are cheap.
Property Values.
posted on 23 Jul 2009Arguably Clint Eastwood's best directing job (and that is saying a lot when you consider a list of credits which includes "Unforgiven", "Mystic River" and "Million Dollar Baby") as his 2006 companion piece to the slightly inferior "Flags of Our Fathers" is a heartbreaking and emotionally difficult study of World War II from the eyes of Japanese soldiers who are attempting to protect Iwo Jima during the most vicious time of the international conflict. Told in flashbacks after a parcel of letters are found on the titled location, we get to see viewpoints from the enemy. Ken Watanabe is the soft-spoken, caring general who realizes early the fact victory and survival are almost nil. Youngster Kazunari Ninomiya is totally out of place as a fleeting infantryman who yearns for home and a reunion with his wife and their new baby. In a smaller, but critical role, Tsuyoshi Ihara shines as a former Olympic horse-riding gold medalist who was treated as royalty following the 1932 Games in Los Angeles. Shades of Lewis Milestone's "All Quiet on the Western Front" and Terrence Malick's ethereal "The Thin Red Line" as Eastwood paints a chaotically beautiful film from the worst situations history has to offer. Co-written, as was "Flags of Our Fathers", by master screenwriter Paul Haggis, "Letters From Iwo Jima" is a thinking person's production which not only stands tall with other films of the difficult genre but also with the truly moving cinematic pictures of all time. Primarily in Japanese with English subtitles. 5 stars out of 5.
An Amazing achievement.
posted on 17 Jul 2009Letters From Iwo Jima is nothing short of a remarkable film. It takes the Japanese perspective in the legendary battle for Iwo Jima, that island that was so critically important to both sides of the conflict. It's not for a second ham-handed or preachy in the way it does it. It shows the humanity and flaws of both sides. One side might have had a more righteous cause, but that doesn't mean the other side is any less human.All the scenes on the island shot in an a very faded greenish-gray hue. It seem very appropriate and gives an emphasize of the darkness, fear, and hell of war. More than anything the contrast gives certain power to flashbacks not shot that way. On all technical levels this film is superb. It has some of the best battle scenes I've seen in a movie since Saving Private Ryan, but it's not the guns and bombs, it's the cinematography and the island itself, that gives the film the biggest visual lift. There's not a poorly shot scene nor an unnecessary one.Top down Letters has many very good performances. I think appropriately there are four characters that are zeroed in on and humanized. Ken Wantanabe is great as the lead General who is loyal to Japan but also questions his commitment and the way things are done in battle. The major characters are all portrayed with some mixed emotions, and varying levels of fear and determination. It's refreshing to see the Japanese in a World War 2 film not universally portrayed as all out fearless kamikaze soldiers, though obviously there's some of that. It doesn't make a claim the two sides were the same, but does well to emphasize the ways they are alike.In all I think Letter From Iwo Jima ranks as one of the 10 best war films I have ever seen. Is it perfect history? Well try to find a war movie that is because I don't think it exists. It is a near perfect movie. An emotional, historical, and technical triumph. A movie everyone should see.
Do what is right, because it is right.
posted on 15 Jul 2009This is a pretty courageous movie. Eastwood has produced and directed the story of one of the most bitter conflicts of World War II -- which we get to see from the Japanese point of view. The Americans (OUR side) are the faceless enemies! And it's not done by the numbers either. The doomed Japanese are not handled with careless and facile sentimentality. Some are loyal and brave, but humane -- notably Ken Watanabe's officer. Others are stern with their own troops and savage towards the US troops. They all demonstrate emotions of one sort or another, recognizably human. It's a more concentrated version of the Japanese soldiers we saw in films like Cornell Wild's "Beach Red" and David Lean's "The Bridge on the River Kwai." If Eastwood's "Flags of Our Fathers" was heads, this is the tails side of the same coin.The same -- yet, not the same. "Flags of Our Fathers" is the better film for a number of reasons. One is that the earlier film had focus that this one lacks. Three Marines and a Navy corpsman touring the states on a trumped-up victory trip to raise money. We got to know the four guys and the tragic aftermath of their victory. The structure of "Letters From Iwo Jima" is more diffuse. With the exception of Watanabe, it's hard to tell one Japanese soldier from another, partly because the film is shot almost entirely in darkness, the color is desaturated to the point at which it is almost black and white, and because uniforms, as always, make it difficult to tell who's who. ("Band of Brothers" had a similar problem.) The "letters" in the title aren't often heard from in the film. Nothing easy. No, "I love you, darling, and I miss the cherry blossoms in the Spring." Rather, an officer reads a letter found on a dying Marine. It's from his mother, who advises him to "do what is right, because it's right." Later, before ordering his men on a suicidal attack, he preps them with the same words.Presumably the writer meant the parallel to be ironic, but she hit on a larger question. Exactly what does "right" mean? Even if you are able to step outside the box and examine your situation objectively, what ethic is available as a guide? In the case of Iwo Jima, "right" meant dying with honor to the Japanese. Pragmatically, it now seems foolish. The Japanese had built fifteen miles of tunnels under the little island, some of the tunnel walls were shellacked. It was like living in a hotel with no room service. Yet the American fleet consisted of 150 ships which, if they'd been in a line-astern formation, would have stretched for seventy miles. Theoretically, the battle was over the moment the fleet appeared. The hopeless resistance led to the spilling of blood by about all of the Japanese and an appalling number of Marines. Would we have done things differently? Probably. We surrendered in a nice pragmatic way on Wake Island. Ditto the British in Singapore. Ditto the American and Fillipino troops on Bataan, although there were undoubtedly those among them for whom "surrender is not an option" was a popular slogan.It's a sad movie and truly anti war. The final scene has Watanabe's brief case being dug up year later and its contents dumped unceremoniously out onto the dusty soil. The contents are nothing more than personal letters. Lots of letters. What seems like hundreds and hundreds of letters, leaving us with the impression that Watanabe, like the other casualties on both sides, would have had a lot more to say had he lived.
Dark, touching, disturbing - great film making.
posted on 13 Jul 2009A much more complex and darker film than 'flags' but brutally told at times - which was needed when telling this story.The flashbacks seem more to the point and less long than the 'flags' stories - which i still enjoyed - but this film i found eye opening. Clint Eastwood just gets stronger and stronger as a director.I also loved the soundtrack and cinematography - which left a vivid mark on my mind.I really want to watch both films back to back now!I found it dark and yet touching, at times disturbing but great film making and very convincing & strong performances.
seriously overrated
posted on 11 Jul 2009'Letters from Iwo Jima' is a tired and predictable attempt at a war movie from a Japanese perspective. It looks and feels small scale and underwhelming. The actors struggle with the one-dimensional script - everything is so black and white, a recurring theme in Eastwood's films. It's difficult to believe the script was written by a Japanese writer: it feels like it has been churned out by a believer in all things stereotypically Japanese. There's no real sense of the scale of the conflict either and no discussion of why parties on all sides (including Japanese civilians also hiding in the caves - not shown in the film) feared and dehumanised the other side. The Japanese suicides (again, civilians were left out in the film: many took their own lives rather than be captured) was due as much to a substantiated belief that they would be executed once captured anyway than to the notion of dying with honour intact. The silly ending to the film only highlights this lack of realism, trying to neatly package something both Japanese and American audiences can feel comfortable taking home when what is actually required is a deeper and less settling discussion of the roots of why, particularly in the east, there is still distrust of Japan and Japanese culture due the atrocities its army committed leading up to and during WW2.
Where were the soldiers?
posted on 05 Jul 2009Yes, there was superb acting. Yes, the English subtitles were a novelty. Yes, the battlefields were haunting. Where were the soldiers? I agree that the film tried to dwell on the personal emotions of selected personalities, but having seen war footages of the actual battle for Iwo Jima, I kind of found the smallness of the focus disturbing.I would not have wanted anything of the scale of Saving Private Ryan, although even that would have helped satiate my need for realism, but there was just nothing in terms of the way the war was really fought, i.e. on a huge scale and, fierce, nay savage! This is not to say the film was bad. On the contrary, it was well-done in many ways. But overall it seemed pretty much like a "stage" version of the real thing, meaning it was just too scaled down.
Disappointed. . .
posted on 05 Jul 2009IMDb misled me yet again, and it's not the first time. I purchased the DVD solely based on the IMDb rating, and I was very disappointed.This movie is tailor-made for "card-carrying" members of ACLU, PETA, and other panty-wearing pacifists. Until now, I've never seen a war movie whose main characters are incompetent pencil-pushing general, coward, and surrendering soldiers that could make the French army proud.I'm a first generation of East-Asian-American and am quite familiar with Japanese military culture and history. Simply put, this movie portrays perhaps the worst of Japanese soldiers. Sure, there were cowards in Japanese army, as in any army for that matter, but that had to be a tiny tiny minority. Why would you make a movie about that tiny minority of coward soldiers? You could show courage, sacrifice, and heroism of men and women in uniform and at the same time show casualty and inhumane nature of war, as in "Finding Private Ryan" and "We were Soldiers". This movie only shows what happens when a incompetent general and coward soldiers team up: disaster.
A Deeply Moving Spectacle, Well Done
posted on 29 Jun 2009I have seen many movies in my time, ranging from soft romance to the goriest of horror. But never, ever in my movie-going days have I seen a cast and a crew captivate me so. Clint Eastwood has directing talent like never displayed before, with power so extraordinary that the audience leaves themselves for the 140 minutes of this film and enters the world of the characters. When you re-enter yourself, you feel immersed in this spectacular movie-making glory, and sit to watch the credits to take it all in. I do not speak Japanese, but the power of this film made me forget, and I have never experienced this before.Clint Eastwood is clearly the mastermind of modern movie-making, and I hope he continues his work with war films. Eastwood displays both the human aspect and the madness aspect of war in one amazing film. Well Done.
First-rate drama from a unique point of view
posted on 29 Jun 2009"War is a beastly business, it is true, but one proof we are human is our ability to learn, even from it, how better to exist." M.F.K. FisherGeneral Tommy Franks could not withstand the biographical scrutiny Clint Eastwood gives to General Tadamichi Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe), the commander of the 20,000 Japanese soldiers who perished defending Iwo Jima against the invading Allies, who lost some 6000. The ill-conceived preparations for the Iraq War pale next to the care the Japanese general took at Iwo. He used his understanding of America from his visit here and his love of his men to hold off the Americans for 36 days, in a fight that was supposed to last five. Factor in the Japanese tradition of honor at all costs and Letters from Iwo Jima has the ingredients for first-rate drama from a unique point of view: the enemy's.Eastwood has always excelled at telling the small story to explain larger issues, for example in Million Dollar Baby and Mystic River. Letters is far superior to its companion, Flags of Our Fathers (the American point of view), because Eastwood scaled it back to a few soldiers we get to know well. In Flags the parade of heroes leaves a blur that takes an entire film to sort out; in Letters the lives of the few soldiers are carefully laid out so that when they are defeated, sorrow and pride are fitting for the characters Eastwood has developed, especially the general.The stark black and white serves both the dark sand of the beaches and the shadowy world of caves the Japanese ingeniously dug. Though the outcome of the battle was preordained (by February of 1945 the Japanese war machine was pretty much depleted), Eastwood suffuses the network of 5000 caves with a light that symbolizes the Japanese soldiers' essential love of country and belief in its destiny.At 140 minutes, Letters is longer than it needs to be, a statement I could make about many films up for Oscar consideration. (These directors are out of control.) Yet Letters' slow pace does accentuate the impending doom for those somberly writing their last letters from Iwo Jima. It may not be the Oscar winner for this year, but it is another first-rate film the director has slipped in at the end of the year in an apparent strategy to get us to notice his film. He had my attention at Mystic River.
Joyless
posted on 25 Jun 2009That is the word that came to mind as I emerged from the soothing cool comfort of the cinema into the glaring harsh reality of a world warming in alarming acceleration. No, that wasn't "An inconvenient truth" that I watched, but I guess there are some similarity in the feeling of helplessness, and, heavens forbid, despair, at the follies of humanity. Purportedly, "Letters" was almost Clint Eastwood's afterthought from making "Flags of our father". A month and a half after the release of the former (in North America), everybody knows that the two movies represent Eastwood's master stroke of examining the Battle of Iwo Jima from both sides, something unattempted hitherto on the cinematic front. Less apparent, however, is how DIFFERENT these two movies are, the "both sides" aspect aside.While "Flags" attempts to address a number of different things (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0418689/usercomments-244), "Letters" wisely steers clear of political controversies, or moral judgments. It is a much simpler movie, with a single agenda – the horror and hell of war, regardless of which side you are on. This is accomplished through the stories, characters and visual images.The stories and characters are handled at an extremely micro plain, again wisely keeping the historical backdrop of Japan's atrocious aggression at a blurred distance. The immensely successful result is the audience's empathy with the protagonists – a humane commander who has been educated in the US, a young baker with a pregnant wife and a MP who is thrown out because he didn't have the heart to shoot a dog as commanded – all thrown into the death roll of Iwo Jima. And death roll this unmistakably is, as there will be no relief, no reinforcement and not even supplies. There is only one inescapable destiny – die for the motherland.The images are therefore images of dying, in many different ways, in addition to being killed in the battlefield. Most disturbing (and gory) is of course the suicides of soldiers exploding hand grenades hugged close to their chests, echoing the devastating images first saw in "Flags". While visually not as gruesome, even more disturbing is a dead soldier, hugging a white flag in an almost fetus position, shot dead AFTER surrendering and being accepted as a prisoner-of-war. Shot in near black and white, "Letters" is a meticulously crafted piece of work that demonstrates that Clint Eastwood is nowhere near running out of steam, deserving our admiration and salute. The cast headed by Ken Watanabe is uniformly excellent.
Pleasant, not great
posted on 26 Aug 2009I enjoyed this movie. The action scenes made some of my adrenaline run, made me even connect emotionally to the Japanese despair over the overwhelming American invasion. However, the movie is a bit too long. You know how it is about war movies that try/are emotional, too many scenes of soldiers dying like ducks and landscape shots that at first strike you as brutal but then just become repetitive. I don't mean they're unnecessary, but they were still prolonged a little too much.Then, the Japanese point of view is nice to see, but in my opinion seems a little too forced anyway. A Japanese sympathizer to the Americans as the main character (especially since he's seen as the smarter one there..).. you know how that sounds. Hollywood cheap "we are best" drama. But again, this does not feel like the case, but it leaves you with a bitter taste of doubt in your mouth. About a possible historical lesson, I was hoping to learn a little more.. not a bad point, just not a great point.Which leaves basically a pleasant movie to watch, but not great. The taste of doubt of too much "Americanism" in it, or forced drama or whatever is offset by the camera works that successfully make you feel for the Japanese and give you a definite idea of how that conflict went.