Letters from Iwo Jima

Hey everyone! I managed to see one more Oscar nominee a couple of weeks ago, Letters From Iwo Jima, Clint Eastwood's flip side to Flags of our Fathers. Eastwood has received much aclaim for being such an overachiever that he actually made two well-received movies at once. And for the most part, he deserves it. As I recall, the editing and the music in Flags annoyed me quite a bit, though the performance by Adam Beach was worth the ticket in. Luckily, I did not have the same problems with Letters. The film was shot documentary style - very stark, very washed out, not much music at all. It was interesting seeing things from the Japanese perspective and Eastwood was smart in highlighting three sympathetic figures - the General (played by the awesome Ken Watanabe of Last Samurai), his friend Baron Nishi a former equestrian Olympian with a fondness for Americans, and an apathetic foot soldier, Saigo. The rest of the Japanese seemed either angry at the General's strategy or desperate to off themselves once it became obvious Iwo Jima was a battle they would not win. The scene where a group of soldiers each blow themselves up one after the other in a cave was most disturbing. I was especially surprised that they at least did not try to do this kamikaze style and take out an American or two. It is hard to rationalize people who show such a preference for death.

My main quibble with Letters comes not so much from it, but from a pattern I've seen in all of Eastwood's recent films - from Mystic River on. As Spielberg is often accused of being an overly sentimental director, I think Eastwood should face the opposite charge. He's overly cynical. And just as one is a crutch, so is the other. In Mystic River, not only did Sean Penn's daughter die, her accused killer was one of his best friends - but then wait - he actually didn't do it. In Million Dollar Baby, not only does Hillary Swank get paralyzed, she bites off her own tongue in an effort to kill herself. In Flags, not only do three soldiers get exploited in a propaganda machine, one of them ends up killing himself. And finally in Letters, not only are the circumstances so dreadful that a couple of Japanese soldiers actually surrender, they end up getting murdered by a couple of American G.I.s after doing so. Okay Clint, I get it. Life sucks. There's always an unhappy ending if you look hard enough. Yeesh.

The other thing that was a bit unsettling for me was the effort to show the Japanese side and make some type of statement that no matter what side you're on, war is hell. I firmly believe that this is true, but I still think the side you're on is vitally important. I realize that the intent of Letters was to show the Japanese side of things, but is this really something we need an American to do? One of the things that made the movie Downfall (the story of Hitler's last days and the best war movie I've seen in years), so great is that it was all done by Germans. I would have found Letters to be more potent had it been an all Japanese production. I do see that both the story and screenwriting were done by Iris Yamashita, who I'm assuming is at least of Japanese descent, but still. A lot of critics are calling this an anti-war film. I don't know if I get that. Any story of war other than Hogan's Heroes always makes war look horrid and brutal. But as long as there are people in the world who are intolerant, uncompromising, envious to the point of violence or power-mad, it looks like war is something we're stuck with. I'm still waiting for the a movie or a miniseries that tells me the full story of Iwo Jima. Both sides or not, Flags and Letters just didn't do this for me.

Boulder Bumpersticker of the Day : Except for Ending Slavery, Fascism, Nazism & Communism, War Has Never Solved Anything

-sunday