Letters from Iwo Jima
Letters from Iwo Jima is a film that is too long, yet has no time to fully plumb the depths of its fascinating topic. Beginning with a 2005 excavation of the famed 1944 battle site, Letters dares to explore the minds and hearts of our then-enemies while they were engaged in a losing battle against us.
Historically (and I mean from a modern, American schoolchild perspective), the Japanese in WWII, with their suicide missions and incredible tenacity, have been stereotyped as modern-day unstoppable samurai. The United States, of course, fighting the last truly uncontested war in our history, are portrayed as heroes and scrappy go-getters. In no way am I implying that either side was deficient or inferior – but it is fascinating to see a portrayal of our fierce and (then) alien enemies as honor-driven troops fighting their own disorganized Alamo. It is also emotionally impactful (particularly in current times) to see U.S. planes and ships creeping in droves toward the camera as objects of terror.
Director Clint Eastwood engages in no namby-pamby softening of our adversary’s impressions of us Americans, from our overwhelming clout and strategic hyperbole to the merciless slaughter of surrendered prisoners. Eastwood’s companion to this film, Flags of Our Fathers, lauding the American heroes of that battle, takes care of that part of the story. Here, through letters insubordinately buried by a soldier, we that battle through the eyes of a terrified grunt and a frustrated Lieutenant General.
The grunt, Saigo (Kazunari Ninomiya) experiences the terrors and impotence of their cave-dwelling standoff, the dysentery and the regional prejudices, suicides and rotten rations, power-grabbing middle management, and serious discomforts. General Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe) gives us the bigger picture of tactics and communication gaps salted with an intimate knowledge of the American psyche. Watanabe and Ninomiya play characters as different from each other as Patton and Hawkeye Pierce, but their eloquence and foresight in the face of this doomed plan is hypnotizing.
Letters from Iwo Jima halts in time (long past time, but still) the terrible necessity of demonizing the enemy in wartime. The soldiers know the other soldiers are men like themselves, but they must imagine a soulless monster out there in order to try and survive their under-powered defense. Recalling how we demonized them (the camps, the propaganda) rings in your ears. By looking at our once-adversaries-now-allies in this intimate way, one must appreciate even more the journey it took these people to befriend us so soon after such horrors (oh, and Hiroshima, Nagasaki) have passed between us.
It must be a unique challenge (as Mel Gibson can doubly attest) to direct a film in a language not your own. Despite nearly every word being in Japanese, after a time you get so wrapped up in it that you forget you are reading. The film is extraordinary in all its technical aspects, and profound and unique in its story. It’s a worthy contender for Best Picture, but regardless of awards, it’s worth your time.
MPAA Rating R-graphic war violence
Release date 12/20/06
Time in minutes 141
Director Clint Eastwood
Studio Dreamworks /Warner Brothers
