Lettres d'Iwo Jima

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.

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.

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.

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")

Not having seen Flags of Our Fathers, I'll be unable to make any comparison to its companion-movie. Even on its own Letter to Iwo Jima could be seen as representing the new tendency to "humanise" what were until recently the traditional WW2 villains from an Anglosaxon point of view. History tends to be written by those on the winning side - hence, we have had decades of inhuman German war machines, cowardly Italians and unspeakably cruel Japanese. Now, over 60 years since WW2, it has become acceptable - nay, the done thing if you have a conscience, to humanise the losers and show even the winners as fallible and even individually despicable (***SPOILER:*** see the American soldier who shoots the two Japanese prisoners who've deliberately given themselves over. ***END OF SPOILER***). Letters to Iwo Jima clearly has its heart in the right place: it wants to be objective, above and beyond anything else. And it is. Japanese soldiers have mothers, adorable young pregnant wives in pretty kimonos and sons they write loving letters to. We empathise with them no less than we have with all those American soldiers in an endless string of war movies. Technically, Letters is a well-made movie. It's also genuinely moving in parts - you do end up caring for most of the main players. For my personal taste, though, it spells things out too much and too often. Still, for something produced by Mr Manipulative Spielberg and co-written by Paul "Crash" Haggis, I was impressed.