Letters from Iwo Jima

Clint Eastwood’s new movie, Letters from Iwo Jima, is a noble attempt at interpreting war from the enemy perspective, but the filmmaking itself shows no originality and the story is quite slow at times and frequently veers toward melodrama.

Letters from Iwo Jima is a companion piece to Eastwood’s earlier movie, Flags of Our Fathers. Flags shows the famous Iwo Jima battle from the American perspective and Letters portrays the same battle from Japanese side. I have not seen Flags, but read the book. The book was written by James Bradley, the son of John Bradley, one of the flag raisers in Iwo Jima. James had worked and lived in Japan for quite a few years and in the book he actually shows some affection for the Japanese people. He did point out that his father never really understood his feelings toward Japanese people and always refused to visit him in Japan. Eastwood’s two films are a brand new approach in war movies and should have been done more often. We rarely stand in other’s shoes when we portray wars. In this movie, Eastwood exposes that war is fought on all sides by human beings.

I admire Eastwood’s good intention, but I simply wish that he could have reduced some tear jerking sentimentalities. I get it that, like their American counterparts, Japanese soldiers have their anxiety, fear and doubt about the war; they also have family and loved ones left behind; they have endured a lot of hardship caused by war. Yet it is not believable when a Japanese officer has a medic treat a severely wounded American soldier even though they are low on medicines themselves. It also stretches credibility when the island commander tries to shield a lowly soldier from danger during their last general attack. Eastwood seems to be keen on showing soldiers are human but at the expense of the reality of war. War is cruel and aims to deprive normal people of their humanity. During wars, many good citizens could become animals in order to survive.

I disagree with some critics who think that the Japanese soldiers in Eastwood movie may be too much like us. The mass suicide scenes in the movie are clear examples about our differences. Japanese warriors are historically trained to value little about his or other’s life while western culture puts human life above all else. Unfortunately in wars many lives are lost for little purpose.

The movie also makes one question about nationalism. The Japanese soldiers are fighting to protect their country even though the country is waging an unjust war toward others. Are they patriots defending their country and people, or are they criminals passive toward their government policy and responsible for murdering many innocent people on foreign land? In my eyes, they are tragic villains. Sadly governments today still twist people’s sense of honor in their advantage and march them to battleground to commit murder in the name of their countries.