The second of Clint Eastwood’s two Iwo Jima themed movies, Letters from Iwo Jima retells the battle of Iwo Jima from the Japanese perspective. The first, Flags of our Fathers told the story as seen through American eyes. Letters from Iwo Jima does everything that Flags of our Fathers failed to do. In other words it actually tells the story of the fight, instead of getting bogged down in a war bonds marketing campaign back home.
It begins months before the United States’s invasion of the tiny Japanese island for which the movie is named, with Imperial troops fortifying and digging in. The war effort isn’t going well, and everyone knows Iwo Jima is a death trap. General Tadamichi Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe) takes command of the Japanese forces stationed there, because everyone else refused the job. He arrives and insists on a walking tour of the island against his officer’s advice and immediately realizes they’ve got everything all wrong.
Kuribayashi has traveled and studied in American, and knows how the Americans think. They can’t count on outside support, the Japanese military is in disarray, the navy has been defeated, and the Emperor is bringing all of their air assets home to prepare a last-ditch defense of the mainland, leaving Kuribayashi’s thousands of ground troops stranded alone on a blasted island, trapped like rats.
He tears apart his commander’s defensive plans and makes them redo everything from scratch. He doesn’t make a lot of friends among the force’s weary warriors. But they must not fall. Iwo Jima is the last line of defense before the Americans can attack the Japanese mainland.
Kuribayashi sets his troops to digging in. By the time the Americans arrive to being their assault, the Japanese forces are hidden in a network of caves and tunnels throughout the island. The film quickly becomes a study in claustrophobia as Japanese troops futilely attempt to bear up under the unceasing waves of American attack.
Kuribayashi must struggle against his own men’s code of honor, as soldiers schooled in the old way of honor fighting refuse to retreat, preferring suicide to tactical withdrawal. No one is allowed to die, says Kuribayashi, until he has killed ten enemy soldiers.
They’re fighting a losing battle, they know they’re all dead, and in the midst of one of the most vicious, protracted pieces of war the world has ever seen, Letters tells individual stories of heroism as Japanese fighters prepare to die.
In doing so, the movie raises interesting questions about what courage is. Which is real bravery? The soldier who rushes heedlessly into battle to give his life in service to his country, or the man who refuses to die, so that he can make it back home to see his wife and daughter?
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Oscar Alert 2006: ”Letters From Iwo Jima”, 9 December 2006
(10/10)
I might be home right now, but I still feel like I’m in the movie theater. I still hear the explosions. I still hear the undeniably confusing Japanese language. I still hear the sounds of agony that war brings.
That is just how powerful ”Letters From Iwo Jima” can be.In October, Clint Eastwood launched the hyped ”Flags of our Fathers”, that was said to be the champion of the year. However, the movie was a huge disappointment, proving to be a clichéd war drama that added nothing new to the genre. I was very sad with Eastwood, I have to admit. However, the man had one more card up his sleeve.
”Letters From Iwo Jima” is pure art-house war drama, a massive monster of a movie that differs from everything Eastwood has ever made. It ranks with ”The Unforgiven” as Eastwood’s best movie.
The story is basically the Japanese point of view of ”Flags of our Fathers”. While the latter had many scenes showing the glory of Americans, veterans returning home being greeted as heroes, and a tone of victory all over, ”Jima” proves to be completely different. There is no glory for the Japanese, only pain. Veterans aren’t greeted as heroes because they don’t return home. There is no tone of victory, but a huge cloud of defeat. ”Jima” is dark, resembling a black-and-white film, and it is one of the saddest movies of the year.
Author: agentmatheus from Brazil. Iwo Jima IMDB.
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