It's said that history can only commence when all the characters involved have passed away. It's been 60 years since Iwo Jima events marked the start of the end of the WWII Pacific War, so it may sound good to revisit this turning point from our modern perspective.
Modern perspective means Japan has become a world economic power. Japanese mega corporations owns much of the American entertainment industry and they slowly seem more open to discuss their recent history. So it took Clint Eastwood to dare to take this project along an extreme thin wire hanging high over hate and revenge, pain and honor, sentiments and memories. For Hollywood has stuck to patriotic propaganda as long as the American message was the only thing needed to market films worldwide. Growing Anti-Americanism has forced not just a more critical approach, already present in so many films, but also a less American-centered vision.
Keeping this in mind, 'Letters from Iwo Jima' succeeded in getting me involved into the doomed fate of thousands of Japanese soldiers, mostly recruited by force to die for his Emperor defending a small volcanic island thought to be the most distant part of the 'sacred land of Japan', as one of its most irreverent fellow soldiers buries all their comrades unsent letters for their beloved ones to get them sometime in the future.
The message behind is not that war is bad, yet it can be understood. The message behind this movie is that war is fought between sons of the same mother. Honor, patriotism, blinded those men into killing and making themselves to be killed by a piece of volcanic rock lost in the ocean, defending a war already lost.
To explain that, Eastwood could get an impressive script, acting, a dim cinematography that remarks the sense of anticipating tragedy, and a hypnotic piano tune that slowly runs into climax with the school Japanese song that plays in the radio for the final farewell.
A bit of flash back, lots of the usual brutality, boring crossfire battlefield scenes, and very emotional, very intense depictions of human beings trapped in the nonsense web of war that help the viewer to endure the toughness of many scenes, the deafening gunshots and explosions, the yelling language of the Japanese military and over all, the anguish of knowing each wound is cut twice in a war: once in your own flesh, another in your beloved ones heart, and the opposite. We see a 'home front' devised to keep the men supply for war going, even if they start to get too young or too old to serve, using everything from propaganda, threatening families, children praising, extortion and all kind of brutal methods.
I liked very much each of the characterizations, and never fell back because of a verbose all-Japanese script because its easy flow. Regarding connection with its companion movie, 'Flags of Our Fathers', we can link a couple of specific events in both films, enough to create a sense of parallel worlds that even clashing one into another are still universes apart.
Technically humble, yet taking advantage of some of the more ambitious 'Flags of Our Fathers' footage and scenery, 'Letters from Iwo Jima' has been devised as a serious, successful effort to create a masterwork that I would recommend to view.
Modern perspective means Japan has become a world economic power. Japanese mega corporations owns much of the American entertainment industry and they slowly seem more open to discuss their recent history. So it took Clint Eastwood to dare to take this project along an extreme thin wire hanging high over hate and revenge, pain and honor, sentiments and memories. For Hollywood has stuck to patriotic propaganda as long as the American message was the only thing needed to market films worldwide. Growing Anti-Americanism has forced not just a more critical approach, already present in so many films, but also a less American-centered vision.
Keeping this in mind, 'Letters from Iwo Jima' succeeded in getting me involved into the doomed fate of thousands of Japanese soldiers, mostly recruited by force to die for his Emperor defending a small volcanic island thought to be the most distant part of the 'sacred land of Japan', as one of its most irreverent fellow soldiers buries all their comrades unsent letters for their beloved ones to get them sometime in the future.
The message behind is not that war is bad, yet it can be understood. The message behind this movie is that war is fought between sons of the same mother. Honor, patriotism, blinded those men into killing and making themselves to be killed by a piece of volcanic rock lost in the ocean, defending a war already lost.
To explain that, Eastwood could get an impressive script, acting, a dim cinematography that remarks the sense of anticipating tragedy, and a hypnotic piano tune that slowly runs into climax with the school Japanese song that plays in the radio for the final farewell.
A bit of flash back, lots of the usual brutality, boring crossfire battlefield scenes, and very emotional, very intense depictions of human beings trapped in the nonsense web of war that help the viewer to endure the toughness of many scenes, the deafening gunshots and explosions, the yelling language of the Japanese military and over all, the anguish of knowing each wound is cut twice in a war: once in your own flesh, another in your beloved ones heart, and the opposite. We see a 'home front' devised to keep the men supply for war going, even if they start to get too young or too old to serve, using everything from propaganda, threatening families, children praising, extortion and all kind of brutal methods.
I liked very much each of the characterizations, and never fell back because of a verbose all-Japanese script because its easy flow. Regarding connection with its companion movie, 'Flags of Our Fathers', we can link a couple of specific events in both films, enough to create a sense of parallel worlds that even clashing one into another are still universes apart.
Technically humble, yet taking advantage of some of the more ambitious 'Flags of Our Fathers' footage and scenery, 'Letters from Iwo Jima' has been devised as a serious, successful effort to create a masterwork that I would recommend to view.