To say Letters from Iwo Jima is a heart-wrenching film is an understatement, but Eastwood directs with a simplicity that ensures the subject matter never becomes heavy-handed.
Letters has some of the same problems as Flags, most notably a certain cool remove from its subjects, though it benefits from a much tighter focus and a higher quality of acting.
...represents one of the most admirable and ambitious projects ever undertaken by an American filmmaker, but unfortunately that doesn't make it a good movie.
...in spite of its cases of explanatory handholding, there remains a stirring potency to Letters' exploration of loyalty, responsibility, and nobility.
Though each project stands on its own merits, like the panels of a diptych they inevitably inform one another. Individually and as a unit, these films are a cry against the awful, horrifying futility of war, a cry made all the more poignant because it is made by a man who has been an avatar of on-screen mayhem.
It's hard to explain exactly why Clint Eastwood's Letters From Iwo Jima is so much better than its companion World War II film Flags of Our Fathers, except to say that Flags tries too hard to emphasize the ironies of selling a war, while Letters deals with the ins and outs of the war itself.
...another masterpiece from the remarkable Clint Eastwood who does what no other American director has ever attempted: he paints a portrait of a major World War II battle from the other side.
Letters from Iwo Jima isn't just the film that Eastwood wanted to make, but one that the film's producer Steven Spielberg had tried to make twice with Empire of the Sun and Saving Private Ryan.
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ALL AVERAGE CRITIC RATING
8.4
AVERAGE USER RATING (7 ratings)
8.0
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USER REVIEWS:
Oracle9
Having just won the Best Picture prize from the National Board of Review, Clint Eastwood's intimate epic "Letters from Iwo Jima" enters the best foreign film Oscar race with banners flying, which is a good thing. Although its competitor “Pan’s Labyrinth” is likely to win the prize, this film is easily the year’s best war film as well as the best directed film of the year. But to compare "Pan's Labyrinth" to this film would be supremely foolish. After all, this film is completely different from its successful competitor. "Letters from Iwo Jima", which observes the lives and deaths of Japanese soldiers in the battle for Iwo Jima, similarly adheres to some of the conventions of the genre even as it quietly dismantles them. It is, superlatively and even humbly, true to the durable traditions of the war-movie tradition, but it is also utterly unpredictable in its own minor details.
Ken Wantanabe stars and undoubtedly gives an astonishing performance as Tadamichi Kuribayashi, a new and sympathetic Lt. General who has barely made his way to Iwo Jima. He is a simple and courageous man, the type of person most of us can connect to. After a quick inspection of the island, the inspired General now devises a war plan. In the viewer's mind their is already an ending planned and predicted, though not through previous war movie endings, but through the gritty history of this event. Eastwood cleverly manages to build confidence and sympathy only to shatter it with masterful action scenes in which they all, obviously, die. Also clever is the usage of a character even more of us can connect to, especially parents of a son. This character is Kazunari Ninomiya, a simple baker who deals in his mind about the philosophy of nationalism contra martyrdom. There is a great flashback while he talks to a fellow soldier, about whom and when he was recruited for the army. In this flashback, we see his wife, and we learn of his soon to be born baby. The film quickly transitions back into reality, and thoroughly creates a dream-like ideology for these flashbacks. Of course, throughout the film, there are more important ones, such as the Lt. General's dinner in America with several American commanders. Eastwood also proves his cinematography again; the frame sparkles at the sight of such beautifully pictured mountains and, ironically, the fire of the war.
It's hard to call this film a superlative masterpiece, even after Eastwood left us with high expectations from "Million Dollar Baby". Although barely evident and highly uncared for, there were some definite continuity errors, such as different clothing and quick changes from day to night. But regardless of political and family backgrounds, in the end the viewer sympathizes more with the Japanese than with the Americans. Eastwood manages to convince us about the two sides of the war through an unforgettable and wondrous diptych. The grace of the film is impeccable, and it is a stark reminder that neither a great director nor a great screenwriter has lost his visceral touches through expository reiteration.
-Oracle
ppast128
I thought the character of Kuribayashi was very well developed, but I thought the other characters were badly casted and not ment for the roles they played, especially the other solider that we followed, whose appearence did not match his character. Also I thought the cinematography was unimaginative, and not artistic. Overall a B+ even though the story and the main characater were very good.
madmitch8
Excellent film. Much better than I expected, Clint has got some wicked film making skillz.
This movie is available on DVD/Video