Film Review

09 January 2009 04:52 BST

Letters from Iwo Jima

Directed by Clint Eastwood, out at cinemas now, starring Ken Wanatabe, Kazunari Niomiya, Tsuyosh Ihara, running time 141 minutes.

In a nutshell…

Trenches, honour, compassion, hopelessness and defeat.

What's it all about?

Japanese troops dig in on the island of Iwo Jima as they prepare to face the American assault.

With no sea or air support and no hope of relief, the soldiers have to defend the dark volcanic beaches which offer a last desperate line of defence for their homeland.

If they fail to stop the superior numbers of the enemy here, then the American forces would have a base within striking distance of the homeland and Japan itself would become a target for air raids and an eventual invasion.

Coupled with another Eastwood flick, Flags of our Fathers, Letters switches the roles to now make the Americans into the enemy.

And they are a foe worth fearing in the eyes of Saigo, a young Japanese soldier, who struggles to deal with the looming threat of battle while the cunning General Tadamichi Kuribayashi attempts to put together a defiant last stand from within a complex network of mountain tunnels.

But when the attack comes and the Japanese troops begin to be overwhelmed, the decimated and horrified soldiers hopelessly strive to force back the Americans and ensure that if they die, they will die with honour.

Who's in it?

Very few names will be recognisable for anyone who isn't well-versed in Japanese cinema, but Ken Watanabe has started to break into Hollywood with roles in Memoirs of a Geisha and Batman Begins, while he earned an Oscar nomination for his role as Katsumoto in The Last Samurai.

As the embattled General Kuribayashi, he manages to create the right mix of stoicism and forcefulness as the general gains the adoration of the young Saigo but has to deal with the hopeless nature of his mission.

Talking of hopeless tasks, Kazunari Niomiya was asked to provide the human edge to the brutality of war in his first role in Western cinema.

To his credit his wide-eyed portrayal of innocence fits the part well, it's just that I'm not entirely sure whether the fear in his eyes was of the American assault or of the camera lens.

As an example…

"We soldiers dig, we dig all day. This is the hole that we will fight and die in." Conscripted baker Saigo writing home at the start of the film.

"For our homeland. Until the very last man. Our duty is to stop the enemy right here. Do not expect to return home alive." General Tadamichi Kuribayashi rallies the troops with a cold dose of realism.

Likelihood of a trip to the Oscars

Events may have overtaken us slightly here as Letters from Iwo Jima has already had its trip up the red carpet, although it picked up a disappointing haul from its four nominations – missing out on best picture and best screenplay, while Clint missed out on best director this year to Martin Scorsese. But the film did, rather bizarrely, win the little golden guy for best sound editing.

What the others say

"Like Flags [of our Fathers], its about what constitutes heroism, although in this case its better expressed, pondering the difference between dying for your country and fighting for it." Empire Online.

"Letters is quality from first frame to last, a war film that is almost a tone poem in how it reveals the minds and secret hearts of the Japanese soldiers." Rolling Stone.

So is it any good?

It's not fun, it's not fast-moving and it's definitely not uplifting, but Letters succeeds as an aching tribute to the tragedy of war.

The line between showing the savage beauty of conflict and its horrible reality can be a fine line to tread, with directors often accused of trivialising or revelling in the bloodshed, but somehow Eastwood manages to avoid both.

Whether in his beautifully-directed, colour-saturated battle scenes or the claustrophobic tunnels under the island, there are constant, inescapable reminders that we're watching a small volcanic rock being turned into a killing field as the hope of the Japanese troops' survival becomes bleaker and more desperate.

In a break from the Hollywood tradition of re-writing history, Eastwood doesn't shy away from a shot of cold reality at times with troops told to forget about leaving the island alive but to make sure they kill at least ten Americans first, scared Japanese soldiers committing hari-kiri with hand grenades and surrendering troops being shot by GIs.

Such scenes of brutal loss of life could have turned the film into a sideshow of gore, but it is rescued by touching portrayals of the connections between the soldiers and even between foes - captured best through the symbolic discovery of an American's letter to a loved one to go with the Japanese letters home from Iwo Jima.

It is a brave film that can win an Oscar after casting America as the enemy and with the vast majority of the dialogue in Japanese, but Letters deserves its accolades for its caring, blend of ferocity and humanity that should put in among the greatest anti-war films of all time.

9.5/10

Nicholas Claxton

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