Release
Date:
December 20, 2006 (NY, LA; wider release: January 12, 2007; wider release:
January 19) Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures Director: Clint Eastwood Screenwriter: Iris Yamashita Starring: Ken Watanabe, Kazunari Ninomiya, Tsuyoshi Ihara, Ryo Kase,
Shido Nakamura, Yuki Matsuzaki, Hiroshi Watanabe, Takumi Bando, Nobumasa
Sakagami, Takashi Yamaguchi, Nae Yuuki Genre: Action, Drama, War MPAA Rating: R (for graphic war violence) Official Website: IwoJimathemovie.com
Plot Summary: Sixty-one years ago, U.S. and Japanese armies met on Iwo
Jima. Decades later, several hundred letters are unearthed from that stark
island's soil. The letters give faces and voices to the men who fought there, as
well as the extraordinary general who led them, Tadamichi Kuribayashi (Ken
Watanabe). With little defense other than sheer will and the volcanic rock of
the island itself, Gen. Kuribayashi's unprecedented tactics transform what was
predicted to be a quick and bloody defeat into nearly 40 days of heroic and
resourceful combat.
In an effort to explore an event that continues to resonate with both cultures,
Clint Eastwood was haunted by the sense that making only one film, "Flags of Our
Fathers," would be telling only half the story. With this unprecedented dual
film project, shot back-to-back to be released in sequence, Eastwood seeks to
reveal the battle of Iwo Jima--and, by implication, the war in the Pacific--as a
clash not only of arms but of cultures
The follow-up and
companion piece to Hollywood legendary personage Clint Eastwood’s
Flags of our Fathers tells the story of the World War II battle over
island Iwo Jima from the Japanese perspective. Eastwood is on a
directorial role. Since Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby
and last year’s Flags, the quality and depth is superb.
In Flags of our
Fathers the American perspective made for a strong piece of
filmmaking. Iwo Jima goes better. War as futilism is hinted at
from the beginning: the trenches the Japanese dig will end with their
bodies in them, one says. For the first hour of screen time the soldiers
prepare for imminent attack. With Japan losing in the war, defeatism is
heard amongst them... But dying an honourable death in spite of defeat
is even as important. If the American soldiers capture the island they
effectively provide the opportunity to launch an offensive against the
Japanese mainland.
However, it’s
imperative that General Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe) leads the Japanese by
providing resistance in unrelenting planning and concern for the welfare
of his troops. Internal factions smack of war movie cliché: the
general’s forthright and clear no-nonsense tactics is questionable by
some of his subordinates. Whispers questioning his integrity are
uttered. Rivalry is created.
The contrast of
personal lives to the battle at the hand adds a layer of humanising
which culminates together to provide a powerful punch in the theme by
movie’s end. Soldier Saigo (Kazunari Ninomiya) has a family at home; we
get to see a few flashbacks. It provides a potent view in range of the
scenes before and after it; going to war means his family is at risk.
Letters from Iwo
Jima engrosses from the first sequence of war preparation until the
final images. The graphic war scenes are sometimes unnerving; the worst
to watch is a culturally sensitive Japanese suicide in the name of dying
with dignity, so the cultural dynamics unfold authentically and humanly,
considering the situation, albeit hard to stomach.
The effect of watching
this battle unfold, told within the whole of the narrative framework, is
powerhouse, a reminder of the fallen world in its state of groping and
fatalism and also how there is a side to people which desires beauty,
resonance and a better life captured in luminously photographed images.
