Letters from Iwo Jima

Did it really last two and a half hours? It felt felt a lot shorter than that.

No, this is not an action war film with nonstop blood baths. It is a film that pulls the humanity out of the monster that is war.

This is one of, if not the best, movie ever directed by Clint Eastwood. I usually have a hard time following plots with many characters because they make me lose focus on the general story, but this one is done well. Not only am I engaged, I also become attached to every character and feel and understand their conflicts.

It does not matter who fights on the right or wrong side of WWII. This film goes beyond that. It is about what is right or wrong for the individual human being. It excels as a story about the human heart.

Don't listen to the people who call this movie inaccurate or revisionist history.

The movie is accurate. There were people on both sides of the war who at times showed kindness.

Labeling all the Japanese soldiers as people who tortured POWS would be like saying all American soldiers in Vietnam killed and rape innocent Vietnamese. Or all American soldiers in Cuba tortured POWS from the wars in the Middle East. You can't group people together like that.

This movie shows better than any other film that there's really no good guys or bad guys when it comes to war. War is just pointless.

The movie is not supposed to be a documentary so the people who bash it for little details should go rent a documentary if thats what they want to see.

Also, Clint Eastwood deserves major credit for telling both sides of the war. Too many war movies always show the enemy as "heartless monsters" when it reality its never like that.

This is without a doubt the best movie of the year. Make sure you go see it.

At the conclusion of the film a person behind me said, "Incredible," twice. Another person followed with, "A masterpiece." I would concur. Perhaps it isn't a perfect film but it is a movie with great impact. I find that it is a testament to the skill of Clint Eastwood as a director and Iris Yamashita as screenwriter that some of the scenes that had the greatest impact were of minor things—a letter read out loud, the way someone saluted, a tear, a song...

There were no clear cut heroes or villains beyond "war" itself. I'm reminded of that saying, "No one wins a war. One side simply loses more than the other." War diminishes us all. We must learn to turn our backs on such endeavors even if it means that the military/industrial death merchants take a cut in profits or that they truly learn to hammer swords into plow shares.

If the film were to depict the battle in a manner that was realistically experienced by the soldiers the film would be unbearable to any viewer. One must see the battle and history as a kind of allegorical backdrop to a story about the utter inhumanity and futility of war. As a film it had to illustrate the overall societal insanity of war through a human lens, and it did this in a deeply moving way.

I had previously watched the violent battle of Iwo Jima in two good movies: 1949 "Sands of Iwo Jima" and more recently in "Flags of Our Fathers". In both features, we see very well-choreographed battle scenes disclosed from the North American point of view, with the "heroism" of the American troops and the personal drama of a couple of soldiers and families, in the usual unilateral formula to reach great box offices in USA. Further, in these two movies, the enemy is nothing but evil and threatening one dimension shadows, using weapons to kill the brave marines.

However, "Letters from Iwo Jima" gives a totally different approach of war, unusual in Hollywood: it shows the human side of the enemies. In this film, the Japanese are also human beings, with different culture where they are prepared to die with honor, but people that love and are loved by someone, have families, wives and children, and fear and suffer with the insanities of war. In this aspect, I liked very much the pacifist perspective given by Clint Eastwood for the same battle, opening the eyes and hearts of viewers that probably were not able to understand this side of the Japanese (and other people) in a war. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Cartas de Iwo Jima" ("Letters From Iwo Jima")

I have watched this film twice already this week (first week of release here in Japan). I am an American living in Japan for the past twenty two years and have yet to see such a strong performance from an (almost) all-Japanese cast. This movie draws you into the caves and makes you a part of the Japanese soldier's life. The main characters all have an interesting story to tell. But in the end the message is clear. War is futile.

The strangest part of all. Clint Eastwood has made a Japanese movie that the Japanese should have made. There is almost no way to tell it was a "foriegn" production until you see the credits.