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  • Film & TV Moderators: ghostfreak

film: letters from iwo jima

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Belisarius

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Joined
Dec 13, 1999
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San Antonio, Texas
film: "Letters from Iwo Jima"

I saw this a couple of weeks ago, and am surprised to see nothing about it or the preceding "Flags of Our Fathers" on this site. For the record, I haven't seen the latter...

Without giving anything away, I thought "Letters" was an outstanding film, albeit one that left me unwilling to talk for a good 30 minutes after it ended. In my op, in the long term this movie will join "All Quiet on the Western Front" as one of the most brilliant indictments of war ever filmed.

Has anyone else seen it?
 
YES. I have also not seen Flags of Our Father but this movie was certainly way more than I expected... I normally find war movies really boring, but the characters engaged me so much that I was in suspense waiting to see what would happen to them amongst such a gory landscape of death and horror. Fucking incredible is really the only way to describe a film of such incredible depth with such a phenomenal story. This gets bumped to the top of my must-own-media list
 
very tight film. saw it last night and it very much moved me.
made me wish i saw Flags of our Fathers.

made me question the point of war. the horrific scenarios played out in this film would've probably broken me.
 
i recently watched flags of our fathers, which had the trailer for this before the menu. if the movie is half as good as the trailer i can say that i'll love it.

(fwiw i thought flags was a 3.5 star or so movie - the pacing was a bit off)
 
I thought Flags was a great film.
Looking forward the seeing Letters too.
 
This was more horifically graphic than saving private ryan IMO & also gave me a huge insight into the pride of the Japanese soldiers, they're straight up nutters.
 
Letters from Iwo Jima is clearly superior to its companion piece, Flags of our Fathers, and I would hesitantly include it in the pantheon of superb war epics, with a few qualifiers. The combat sequences are at turns breathtaking (sweeping ariels of the island as it is bombed and shelled) and shockingly brutal (bayoneting and other close quarter fighting). The action sequences are technically more impressive than Flags of our Fathers, but they are not quite on par with the bloody, kinetic frenzy of master works like Black Hawk Down, Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers.

But then of course, this is not primarily a combat film. It is a deeply disturbing psychological exploration of the horrific realities of combat, and I think it is very successful in sucking you into the mindset of the Japanese soldiers as they await their deaths. There is one particular scene inside a cave when Mt. Suribachi is lost that is extremely effective in conveying that sense of impenetrable terror. Fortunately for us, the viewer, we can pause the scene, turn it off, or at least know that in a few minutes it will be over. Not so for the soldiers.

The film is less effective as a portrait of traditional Japanese notions of honor for one big reason: the two Japanese officers who have extensive experience living in and socializing with Americans are portrayed as the most enlightened, while virtually all other Japanese officers are portrayed as brutish and almost imbecilic in their convictions. Now, I'll be honest, I don't know enough about Japanese culture to say whether this is a bit of patriotic American bias bleeding through, or whether it is a reasonably accurate representation of historical fact. But keep in mind, this film was made by an American production company. It just seemed to my untrained eye that the characterization of the Japanese was a little off.

A minor criticism however, as the main empathetic thrust of the film is very effective and very well done. All in all, this film is extremely well rounded, with a nice balance between both heroic and disgusting combat sequences; warm personal vignettes giving backstory into the characters; and deeply soulful meditations on a soldier's life and death on the battlefield.
 
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