Film Review: Letters from Iwo Jima

Letters from Iwo Jima

Directed by Clint Eastwood. Written by Iris Yamashita. Story by Iris Yamashita & Paul Haggis.

Starring Ken Watanabe, Kazunari Ninomiya, Tsuyoshi Ihara, and Ryo Kase.

2006.

This film was originally titled Red Sun, Black Sand before being released as Letters from Iwo Jima. Red Sun, Black Sand is infinitely cooler sounding, but Clint Eastwood didn't make that film; he made Letters from Iwo Jima. A film needs to choose it's title, and this is the title that fits.

Letters starts and ends with a framing story that is slight and irrelevant. Flags of Our Fathers, Letters' Pacific Theater companion piece also directed by Clint Eastwood in the same year, also used a framing device to somewhat more profound effect as did producer Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan. Why these war films feel the need to contextualize by establishing a present day epiphany is beyond me, and it only detracts from what otherwise is a fine film as is the case here.

It's interesting watching a film from the Japanese perspective of World War II. With them as the protagonists, you cheer them on in their fight against the Americans. Besides the fact that they are reviled as the enemy (they did after all attack Pearl Harbor), how often, especially in regards to modern warfare, do you watch the heroes hold a defensive position? Where's the gung ho, ra ra ra aspect in that.

The use of flashbacks only proves to slow down the momentum. The worst moment comes when Shimizu (Kase) reiterates the beautiful simplicity of the scene where Baron Nishi (Ihara) read aloud from a letter from home taken off a dead American soldier. Yes, "his mother's words are the same as my mother's words"-- we understood it the first time with the looks on the Japanese soldiers' faces, we didn't need to be hit over the head with it. This contribution is no doubt the influence of Paul Haggis. Haggis' lack of subtlety seems to be his trademark at this point, and was a major flaw in his other Clint Eastwood collaborations as well as his own directorial efforts. The only places where it hasn't seemed problematic were his screenplay for Casino Royale and, fittingly, (snicker) Walker, Texas Ranger.

The one flashback that manages to earn its keep is General Kuribayashi's (Watanabe) remembrance of his American military hosts on what appears to be a diplomatic point in time. It manages to highlight the central themes: being patriotism versus the horror that is war. Soldiers are just good men, mostly innocent, fighting for what they've been told is right, not too blame for the machinations and politics of their leaders.

There is also a sense of conflicting thoughts of tactic. Kuribayashi finds dissent among some of the officers beneath him who would like to die an honourable death fighting. I don't know what the Japanese reaction to the film was, but I get a sense from oriental/occidental critical theory that Asian societies are supposed to be more of a collective sensibility versus Western individuality, and I get a sense of that here, somewhat. But then again, all films need to find a focus, and that means individuals. And the individual with a standout role here is Kazunari Ninomiya as the soldier of our focus, Saigo. He is a coward. He is a good soldier. He is not a soldier. He is a simple baker. He is a husband. He is all these things. And he captures them all well. Especially, considering his early scenes that present him as a somewhat bumbling, comic relief of the 'Is my commanding officer standing directly behind me as I ignorantly say unpatriotic words' variety.