Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)

Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)

Director : Clint Eastwood.
Genere : History / War / Drama.
Cast : Ken Watanabe, Kazunari Ninomiya, Tsuyoshi Ihara, Ryo Kase.
Rating : Classic
War always is one sided, and so is any war movie. It is usual for a war movie to show enemies as demonic characters who is willing to do any inhuman things to kill the good or specifically the side where the camera is placed. So Clint Eastwood used two movies “Flags of Our Fathers” and “Letters from Iwo Jima” to show both sides. “Letters from Iwo Jima” stands by the Japanese side and their struggle to survive. The movie tells the story of Japanese soldiers fought on Iwo Jima through the letters unearthed from a Japanese Second World War tunnel in Iwo Jima. Iwo Jima is nothing but a volcanic island with no fresh water or food but strategically importance of Iwo Jima is vital for this war. Lt. General Tadamichi Kuribayashi was send not to win the war but to hold Iwo Jima as long as he could. He knows well that they are outnumbered and is in a no win situation. So he develops a strategy to make victory difficult for the enemy.

Unlike a usual Hollywood movie here the enemies are the Americans, the greatest encroachers of all time. The movie is told through the stories of Saigo (Kazunari Ninomiya), Baron Nishi (Tsuyoshi Ihara), Shimizu (Ryo Kase), Lieutenant Ito (Shidou Nakamura) and Lt. General Tadamichi Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe) which they performed to their finest. Iris Yamashita the screen writer has done a wonderful job and Eastwood was bold enough to use the Japanese language rather than making the Japanese soldiers speak English. “Letters from Iwo Jima” shows us the sacrifice and hardship of Japanese soldiers during the war and lets us think that even enemies are men and have life and reasons just like the others. Also recommends its counterpart “Flags of Our Fathers”.
blog comments powered by Disqus