Letters
from Iwo Jima is an interesting experiment in telling the same
story from a different perspective. It does for the Japanese experience
what Flags of Our
Fathers did for the American one, and since that wasn't very
much, neither is this.
Movie Review: Letters from Iwo Jima
There's no iconic photo to hinge this story on, but that doesn't matter.
It's just another war movie. We learn about and identify with the Japanese
soldiers and watch them die graphically in the senseless battle of war.
They flash back to their prewar experiences but it's all the same stuff.
Just like most Americans, the Japanese soldiers are kids following orders
with no investment in a political ideology. One of them had to leave his
pregnant wife to fight, another had to learn to be a cold blooded killer.
It's the same pathos as everything from All Quiet on the Western
Front to Full Metal Jacket, competently done but
hardly memorable at this point.
The setup is so long with so many boring stories, you just want them to
fight already. But then when they start fighting, it's so gratuitously gory,
it's like enough already. I never would have imagined that Saw
III would be one of the least gory movies of the year. With
films like Apocalypto,
The Departed
and this, it may not even crack the top 10.
Yes, war is bloody and gory. That's reality. I don't
have much of a problem with gore. I liked Apocalypto because
of it, not in spite of it. But in Iwo Jima, it really felt
indulgent. The point is simple. They're not so different from us, and their
obsession with death before dishonor is counterproductive. By the time they
show the mass suicide, it's too much.
It's filmed in the same colorless tint as Flags. There
is some interesting overlap, some battle footage flip flopped and seeing
what happened to some characters who disappeared in the other film. There's
no big reveal though. It's just, "Hey, that's the same guy!".
Perhaps the downfall of the Japanese forces was that their superiors were
all so stern and morbid. It's so one note, it hardly left room for the nuances
of combat. Clint Eastwood and Paul Haggis sure know how to stage scenes
of gratuitous cruelty for emotions (using a pet dog always works) but it's
really simplistic. People should expect more from such acclaimed filmmakers.
Letters from Iwo Jima is really long for doing almost the
exact same thing as a movie that just came out three months ago. Whatever
advantages it may have over Flags, it really just makes
you want to be done with WWII already.
Add to Heffee!
