Letters from Iwo Jima Review - Showing The Contrast Between Hatred And Compassion During War
Ken Watanabe as General Kuribayashi - The head General tasked with defending the island of Iwo Jima during World War II as he reflects on his family while arriving by plane to the island to his almost certain death.
Letters from Iwo Jima is a 2006 Japanese-language American war film directed and co-produced by Clint Eastwood, starring Ken Watanabe and Kazunari Ninomiya. The film portrays the Battle of Iwo Jima from the perspective of the Japanese soldiers and is a companion piece to Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers, which depicts the same battle from the American viewpoint; the two films were shot back to back. Letters from Iwo Jima is almost entirely in Japanese, despite being co-produced by American companies DreamWorks Pictures, Malpaso Productions and Amblin Entertainment.
Letters From Iwo Jima is a masterful film. The film is set during World War II and depicts the Japanese side of the battle over Iwo Jima and the culture clash within the soldiers protecting the island. The film is arguably one of the best films on war ever made as it really goes into depth how there is so much grey area in terms of global conflict.
The film really shows how war is just a construct that humans put themselves in and that at the end of the day, humanity, sympathy, and compassion will always try to prevail. The aspect of the film I’m referencing is the pistol of Kuribayashi. Throughout the whole movie, Japanese soldiers question how Kuribayashi came into the ownership of a beautiful Colt M1911. Japanese soldiers consistently dream up false situations where he was able to confiscate it from a dead American. The sad reality was that Japan and the U.S., having been former allies during World War I, had a very different relationship than the heated and intense hatred U.S. and Japanese soldiers shared during World War II. The true reality was that the beautiful Colt M1911 was a cherished gift by the Americans to the Japanese General Kuribayashi.
General Kuribayashi as he graciously accepts a M1911 pistol with a pearl handle as a gift during a celebration with American generals.
The film also exposes other very human interactions like when the Japanese officer Takeichi Nishi, an olympian who is able to actually speak english, takes in an injured U.S. soldier and actually provides medication and treatment to him to the disgust of the troops under his command. The gesture isn’t fully understood until the American soldier dies and Nishi reads a letter the soldier received from home that really exposes how similar the U.S. and Japanese soldiers really are underneath their nation’s flags.
The scene had elements that mirrored themes of the WW1 Christmas truce which was a series of widespread unofficial ceasefires along the Western Front of the First World War around Christmas 1914. The truce occurred five months after hostilities had begun. It is the brief moments like these were simple kind gestures remind us that we’re all human on the same planet and that the propoganda they feed troops to fight eachother isn’t always the most accurate.
Letters from Iwo Jima was critically acclaimed, and well noted for its portrayal of good and evil on both sides of the battle. The critics heavily praised the writing, direction, cinematography and acting. The review tallying website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 184 out of the 202 reviews they tallied were positive for a score of 91%, and an average rating of 8.20/10, and a certification of "fresh." The site's consensus states: "A powerfully humanistic portrayal of the perils of war, this companion piece to Flags of Our Fathers is potent and thought-provoking, and it demonstrates Clint Eastwood's maturity as a director."
