PLOT: A new Lt. General is put in command of the Japanese forces at Iwo Jima on the eve of the invasion by Allied soldiers near the end of World War II. Realizing the hopelessness of the situation, he orders the men to dig caves in Mount Suribachi, turning it into a fortress. A companion piece to Eastwood's other Iwo Jima film, Flags Of Our Fathers.
There may be something to be said for making the same film twice -- at least if Clint Eastwood's second try at telling the Iwo Jima story is any indication.
Letters From Iwo Jima is the flipside of last fall's World War II saga Flags Of Our Fathers, this one told from the standpoint of the horrendously overmatched Japanese troops who hunkered down, Alamo-like, in man-made caves in Mount Suribachi to await the onslaught of the world's largest invasion force.
And it is, in every way, a more compelling film experience than its more ambitious companion piece. It may even be Eastwood's best film.
The flawed Flags, with its sour story of fakery and fabrication of heroes, juggled more themes and debate points in the air and seemed to be all over the place.
Letters, on the other hand, is a simple, taut and claustrophobic film about waiting for death on a God-forsaken piece of land. The only question it ever has hanging over the air is "Why?"
Indeed, as opposed to the Alamo -- which was historically quite a quick battle in the end -- the invasion of Iwo Jima was supposed to take a matter of days, and ended up lasting a bloody month. Credit veteran cavalryman Lt. Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe), who was given what turned out to be a suicide command and rewrote the book on defending an island -- trading beach fortifications for a series of caves in Suribachi, the same mountain atop which U.S. Marines famously hoisted the U.S. flag.
It's a tremendously dignified performance for Watanabe (The Last Samurai), who arrives on the island amid condescension from his subordinates and suspicion from the troops -- though they're initially happy about not having to dig trenches on the beach anymore, and about the general's order that the brutal Lt. Ito (Shidou Nakamura) stop beating them .
Kuribayashi's fate on the island turns out to be inextricably linked to that of Saigo (Kazunari Ninomiya), an amiable and glib baker whose only desire is to return to Japan to his wife and newborn daughter, and whose mantra is "I don't want to die for nothing."
Seeking a kindred spirit, Kuribayashi welcomes another cavalryman to Iwo Jima, Baron Nishi (Tsuyoshi Ihara), a dashing former Olympic equestrian who comes to the island with a bottle of Johnny Walker in hand. Like Kuribayashi, Nishi has spent time in America and even speaks English. (It turns out that during the 1932 L.A. Olympics, he'd had dinner with Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford). The two men's friendship is instant and deep.
Like Flags, Letters jumps from time to time back to the "homefront" in a series of flashbacks. These, however, are straightforward instruments of backstory, rather like you'd see in a episode of Lost. And they're effective -- particularly when they flesh out characters like the young military policeman Shimizu, whose suicide assignment turns out to have been punishment for disobeying a particularly cruel order, or like Kuribayashi himself with his experiences in America.
Through it all, however, claustrophobia is the overriding vibe -- punctuated by moments of horror, and a grim vision of an ocean full of battleships, a scene the film returns to repeatedly. The battle scenes are even more effective than the ones in Flags, underlined as they are by heroic futility.
BOTTOM LINE: Imagine The Alamo without the jingoism. As opposed to its more-ambitious companion piece, which soured the mix with themes about fabricating heroes, Letters is spare, simple and claustrophobic -- pure drama, and possibly Clint Eastwood's best film.
(This film is rated 14A)
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