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Japanese soldiers under the command of Lt. Gen Tadamichi Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe) are entrenched
on the island of Iwo Jima, preparing for the IS invasion of Mount Suribachi.
Some of the Japanese soldiers are fighting out of a sense of duty when they would rather be home, as when it is peace time. These soldiers include Saigo (Kasunari Ninomiya), a young baker who has left his pregnant wife and is now longing to see his baby; Baron Nishi (Tsuyoshi Ihara), an equestrian and Olympic medalist who has brought his favorite horse with him on the island; and Shimizu (Ryo Kase), who was discharged from the kempetai after five days of service and virtually demoted to fight the American GIs on Iwo Jima. Although a patriot and a man of honor, Lt. Gen. Kuribayashi is held in suspicion by a handful of officers for being friendly with Americans, having served years ago as Japanese envoy to the United States.
With Letters from Iwo Jima, director Clint Eastwood provides the other half of the circle
that began with Flags of Our Fathers. Flags…
saw one of the most crucial battles of World War II, the 40-day battle of Iwo Jima in 1945, from the American perspective; Letters… now views the same battle through Japanese lenses. Letters from Iwo Jima is an emotionally gripping film that owes much of its technical power to the sensitive directing, topnotch acting and masterful use of cinematic device, such as shooting in desaturated color, using English subtitles for the almost totally Nihonggo dialogue, etc. It looks almost like a documentary except that it haunts like gut-rending poetry—a thing of beauty that combines ferocity and fragility. There is a great deal of violence and gore as may be expected of a war movie, but in predominantly black and white film, blood loses its power to terrorize or nauseate. Letters from Iwo Jima is definitely stronger than
Flags of Our Fathers; director Eastwood outdid himself here, a sure contender for the Oscars.
The drama in Letters from Iwo Jima
spins around the characters' struggle to reconcile conflicting loyalties: deep human/personal needs versus compelling patriotic obligations; family versus country; my happiness versus my people's glory. The film is absolutely an anti-war statement, revealing war and international conflict as the offspring of ignorance. The film's theme may not appeal to young people, although it is rich with values that could be discussed with the entire family: patriotism, honor, suicide, compassion, our shared humanity in spite of cultural, racial, social and other kinds of differences. Perhaps mulling on the message of Letters from Iwo Jima would lead one to see the senselessness of war, as one Japanese soldier does upon hearing a letter read from a mother to her son, an American soldier they had captured and who died clutching the letter. The Japanese soldier says. "I thought Americans were savages… but the letter of that soldier's mother… those are the same words my mother writes to me…"
(Date Reviewed: 23 February 2007)
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