Movie Review: Letters from Iwo Jima

By Anne Brodie Dec 18, 2006, 5:49 GMT

The story of the battle of Iwo Jima between the United States and Imperial Japan during World War II, as told from the perspective of the Japanese who fought it. The story centers on the experience of real-life Japanese General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, who fought back American troops for 40 days before the small island fell to allied forces. ...more

This haunting story opens as young Japanese soldiers dig trenches on Iwo Jima, holes from which they will wage war against Allied forces. They know they are digging their own graves.

Overhead, a military official is getting ready to land at the encampment, thinking about giving his life for his country - he is glad to do it. But niggling mundane thoughts trickle in – he didn’t finish the kitchen floor before he joined up.

Music fills us with dread and anxiety for these people, at one time considered the enemy of freedom, here, just young kids thrown into war.

At mealtime, they sit around gossiping, unaware of their situation.

Eastwood gives us these young men once considered enemies, just being, living and thinking of home, youngsters who are wrenched out of familiar morality to kill other human beings.

Olympic medalist General Tadamichi Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe) arrives on horseback at the encampment, to assume control of the battalion. He tells his officers he bought the magnificent animal in Italy.

These are not isolated people; they are as tuned into the world as any nation and yet, yet they are living in caves at the mercy of the world’s most ‘advanced’ society.

The General brings bad news. Japanese sea and air defenses are destroyed – all the young soldiers can do is fire rounds from their pathetic ditches. 

The instructor tells the men they have an advantage over well-armed American forces. Americans ‘lack discipline, and let their emotions interfere with their duty’.

As he says that, two young men exchange disbelieving glances.

The air raid siren sounds as the first American warplanes soar overhead.  The sight of dozens of American warships, accompanied by endless warplanes, is astonishing.

Japanese forces are vastly outnumbered. It isn’t even a contest; they are fish in a barrel and by now, they know relief and success are not coming.

Letters from Iwo Jima is relentlessly sad.

It’s crushing watching the fate of the Japanese soldiers unfold, a bitter counterpoint to the American bravado of ‘Flags of Our Fathers,’ Eastwood’s Iwo Jima story from the American point of view.

Letters is set in a subterranean hell of failure and defeat, as soldiers wait for, and cause death.

Despite the difficulty of the subject matter, ‘Letters from Iwo Jima’ is a masterpiece.

The film was shot on location in canyon country around Los Angeles, as the real Iwo Jima is strictly off limits. The island is a bleak volcanic place with sands of a particularly lifeless color.

‘Flags of Our Fathers’ was shot in the volcanic sands of Iceland. It is subdued, but the brighter of the two.

While ‘Flags of Our Fathers’ becomes increasingly vivid with each American success, “Letters” is physically and spiritually colorless, reflecting the film’s themes of loss and waste.

Eastwood’s direction is delicate and intelligent dealing with the burden of hopelessness. He has created an original and breathtaking art film, which is often unbearably sad, but always elucidating.

It is refined and timeless.

Eastwood is an artist and classicist who has been free to pursue his talents and interests for the past forty years, defining his art free of studio dithering.

He has written his own ticket through his nearly 30 year old company Malpaso Productions.
The results of such freedom are consistently excellent.

'Letters from Iwo Jima' stands with Eastwood’s Oscar winner ‘The Unforgiven’ as the measures of fine filmmaking.

Letters from Iwo Jima
35mm historical drama
Directed by Clint Eastwood
Written by Irish Yamashita and Paul Haggis
Language: Japanese
Country: USA

Wide release USA December 20. MPAA: Rated R