Letters from Iwo Jima: A soft lyrical war film review
Satyaki Roy reviews Clint Eastwood's 2006 film Letters from Iwo Jima
Unlike earlier generations of film enthusiasts I haven't known Clint Eastwood as an action hero, though I have loved those fantastic westerns. I have known him as a director of films like The Bridges of Madison County and Million Dollar Baby; soulful renditions. And then I saw Letters from Iwo Jima.
In 2005, a group of Japanese archaeologists come across a sack of letters while exploring tunnels dug in the island of Iwo Jima back in 1944. Buried there towards the desperate end of the war by Private First Class Saigo, they were letters the soldiers wrote to their families, which never left the island. Words from those letters take us through the story of the battle for Iwo Jima.
Based on real events, with a few fictional characters, Letters from Iwo Jima is said to be from the perspective of Japanese soldiers. But by the end one can't think of those soldiers down in the war trenches as Japanese or American or anything. Just ordinary men and boys dying in a wretched war. The layers are thick and this one film speaks a hundred stories.
Tom Stern's photography is more than interesting. Beautiful de-saturated colors with some of the island green. And a blood red in the Japanese flag. The first shot, a tilt-up from the beach is exceptional. The night shots with all the smoke and mist do well and the lighting inside the tunnels is quite realistic.
Great sound, not unnecessarily loud, actually soft for a war film, with the voice-overs placed gives this film a unique feel. Especially the sound of the sea waves, it melts into the story so beautifully. The music deserves more than praise. It will play in your head long after the film is over.
Eastwood's admiration for the main character, General Kuribayashi, is evident. That man does no wrong in the film. Played by Ken Watanabe, it's a hero one can respect very easily. It would be incorrect for me to comment on the acting since the dialogues are in Japanese, and subtitles can never really take you there. But the silent parts are filled with a tension which can only come from some really good acting.
The wise Japanese officers happen to be the ones who have been to America. I wonder.
A few things I can't forget. When the soldiers at Mt. Suribachi lose it to the Americans they ask for permission to die honorably, i.e. commit suicide. But General Kuribayashi orders them to withdraw and keep fighting. Many consider it cowardice and kill themselves. A few listen. Colonel Nishi's men capture an American soldier and give him morphine, which they are short of themselves. When he dies Nishi finds a letter from the soldier's mother to her son and reads it out to his men. I can't forget that line- do what is right, because it's right. Towards the very end they play a song on the crackling radio, sung by school children from Kuribayashi's hometown. It seems like a cruel joke and then somehow becomes sublime. The radio spurts out that song dedicated to them and to Iwo Jima and to that famous pride and the men just sit still. There is so much that can be said about this film.
A soft lyrical war film, it's painful and gruesome and beautifully sublime. A friend of mine came out of the screening room after watching the film and I asked him how he found it. He said.
"I felt like crying at war."
