Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Episode 33.5 - Letters from Iwo Jima Review 8/10

Letters from Iwo Jima - 2006 - Clint Eastwood

According to the box, Letters from Iwo Jima shows how the battle for Iwo Jima turned from a lost cause into “40 days of heroic combat” due to the tactics of General  Tadamichi Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe). According to the movie…uhhh…that kinda doesn’t matter so much. Really, this movie more tackles the question of honor and takes it to unnerving extremes. This would not have been done by a Japanese director; he wouldn’t have filmed it as it challenges the logic of ideals that have been sacred for centuries.  Clint Eastwood just says “fuck it, this ain’t no Last Samurai hug and kiss bullshit…this is war. Dirty, grimy, modern warfare.”

This story actually begins well before the iconic battle, as Japanese soldiers are spending their quiet days digging trenches and preparing for a bloodbath on the beach. It’s boring and seems like a pointless effort, as Saigo (Kazunari Ninobody-cares) expresses with rants about how he wishes he could just give the island away to the Americans. His disgust is most seen through his letters to his wife, which are basically elongated Facebook posts: “Today we’re digging…and some stuff about how I love you.” “Today we’re still digging…and some more stuff about how I love you.” “Saigo checked in at Dig Site with 140 others.”

Eventually, the arrival of Kuribayashi changes all that as he feels the best defensive effort will be made more inland and underground. Instead of trenches, he wants tunnels. Instead of the in the beach, he wants a battle in the hills. He has an interesting approach to his methods; he analyzes battlefields like Willem Dafoe in Boondock Saints as if some orchestra is playing in his head and its harmony is tuning out the distractions, leaving him a clear picture of how everything will go down. He’s a man who has to be a chess player, thinking moves ahead while his other officers criticize him for not realizing what’s staring him in the face, ignoring the fact that pawns are most effective diagonally. Kuribayashi also has the benefit of having studied Americans, living amongst them for diplomatic reasons. For this, he is looked at, but never called, a traitor of sorts, abandoning the honor of the Japanese people for the sake of sympathizing with the Americans.

And that’s where Letters starts becoming a gem. Ironic that this is the same man who refused to accept the Western ways in The Last Samurai. Now he is its advocate, its champion. He, and others around him who value their lives more than their obligation to “honor,” grasp onto the concept of leave no man behind and as the battle ensues, a vicious war is had behind the lines on what “retreat” really should mean. On whether “surrender” should mean forfeiture of life or to “live to fight another day.” As Kuribayashi’s men skitter through the tunnels of Iwo Jima, positioning themselves in key places to stall the American armies, the struggle to accept the worth of the fight begins to overwhelm even the strongest, as shown in one of the most brutal and breathtaking scenes I have ever seen in a war movie.

The logic of honor is questioned here, and as we are American, and grew up with “honor” meaning “making sacrifices for the good of others” it seems nonsensical to see so much devotion to the Eastern way of thinking, where “honor” simply seems to mean “whatever doesn’t lead to shame.” Letters showcases this regularly, through the eyes of all walks of life: ones that have seen things our way, ones where “honor” means dying for your country, and ones where “honor” means staying alive to make as much of a difference as possible. These worlds collide under the tunnels of Iwo Jima, and from them come stories of courage and compassion, fear and loss and are done…somewhat seamlessly.

Again, this isn’t a movie that wow’d me, and it took a long time before I figured out what I was watching. As I read the back of boxes like a moron, I thought I was going to watch an epic chess match unfold and after a while I realized “oh, this is East vs. West stuff again. Cool, that works.” The battle of Iwo Jima is memorable because of how bloody and ruthless it became, but Letters kind of ignores that for the sake of spreading its message and as a result, it’s not very engaging and just kind of drags you along.

I put this on par with Black Hawk Down, but not as good as Flags of our Fathers. Still a really good watch, but I would have like to see more out of it other than sentimentality amidst the most brutal battle of World War II (other than the one that just went “Boom” and called it good). Pulling in an 8 dustbusters out of 10 from me, I recommend it, but again, you can do much better with a war movie.


2 comments:

  1. War movies just aren't my thing and I usually don't go there, but I've seen both of your last two and I've gotta agree; solid, but not outstanding.

    "Black Hawk Down" is intense...but could have been much more emotional if there'd been more character development (not to mention a little more historically accurate). I know that wasn't its point, but I lost interest pretty fast because of it.

    I liked "Letters from Iwo Jima", but appreciated the companion piece "Flags of Our Fathers" much more. One thing about Iwo Jima, it's nothing if not beautifully acted and gorgeously filmed. I liked the choice of black-and-white and I found it interesting to see the battle presented from the losing side, and it fascinated me to see what the Japanese considered an "honorable" death. Beyond that though I had a hard time really getting into it.

    Guess I'm still waiting for someone to top "The Hurt Locker". :)

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  2. See, I liked the presentation of the losing side, however, it didn't get progressively worse as the battle raged on. I didn't even know that it was over until I was basically slapped in the face with it. It just spent so much energy getting the message across of old Japanese honor and it's place in the modern day it seemed to forget that this was a war movie, this was a bloody battle and as much as I'd like to say "well that was the point," it spent just enough time convincing us that "yeah, we'll focus on the war thing too" then just left us hanging.

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