Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) - A+

"Letters from Iwo Jima" is the second half of Clint Eastwood's Iwo Jima saga. "Flags of Our Fathers" tells the story of Iwo Jima from the American side, while "Letters from Iwo Jima" tells the story from the Japanese side. While "Flags of Our Fathers" was definitely a fine movie, "Letters" is clearly the superior film. Of all of the films that Eastwood has directed, the only one that might be the equal of "Letters" is "Unforgiven."

Eastwood's film uses the backdrop of the battle of Iwo Jima to show a struggle between three conflicting philosophies amongst the Japanese soldiers. Ken Watanabe is stellar as General Kuribayashi, the commander of the Japanese forces at Iwo Jima. He represents the point of view of a progressive, more enlightened Japan, a hint at the economic revival to come after the war. He spends much of the movie struggling against a more traditional, rigid, Japanese military philosophy. The more traditional philosophy is aghast at the idea that Kuribayashi wants to give up certain strong points and fall back to more defensible positions if the situation warrants it. It would be dishonorable to allow those positions to fall, and dishonorable not to attempt, even suicidally, to retake those positions once they fall.

Contrasted with those dueling military philosophies is the point of view of many of the infantry grunts within the Japanese army, personified in the character of Saigo, a baker drafted into the Japanese army, played superbly by Kazunari Ninomiya. Saigo, and the other soldiers like him, has no samurai or military tradition in his family. While he may love Japan, he mostly wants to survive and return home to his family.

Many reviewers I read talked about "Letters" being a great anti-war movie. I don't really agree. I feel that Eastwood's powerful movie doesn't take a position on when war is right or wrong. Instead, he unflinchingly shows us the cost of war, stripping away all the adolescent male fantasies of glory in combat. Some might see how terrible war is and walk away feeling that war is never worth it. Others, like myself, take away a different message. That message is not that war is never right. It is that we can't forget just how terrible war really is. Don't let the video game images of precision cruise missile on CNN make you forget how horrific war is. There still may be times war is the right choice, but it's terrible cost means that it has to be one of the last choices.

I thought that both 2006 and 2007 were great years for movies. One sign of this was that "Letters from Iwo Jima" did not end up being my top movie of 2007, and I'm not sure it would have been my top movie of 2006 had I seen it in 2006. There are many other years where I'm sure it would have been an easy choice for the top spot on my list.

Final Grade: A+