Flags and Letters
November 6, 2006
Clint Eastwood has directed a film to complement his recent Flags of Our Father. FoOF chronicles the Battle of Iwo Jima and that famous photo of some GIs raising the flag atop Mt. Suribachi. This new second effort, Letters from Iwo Jima, is the same island invasion story, now from the Japanese perspective. Stars Ken Watanabe. Further details over at the Wikipedia. Trailers right here. Scheduled for a limited US release in December.
The whole concept is very impressive. Shades of Beowulf and Grendel. Has there been a set of movies about two different sides of the same story?
Quick Flags of Our Father review: It's great every time the camera is rolling through the war footage. The whole thing goes down between Saving Private Ryan-style bookends ("Martha, tell me I've led a good life...") of unnecessary, overly sentimental retrospection. There's a bit of repetition whenever the film leaves the shores of Iwo Jima and flash-forwards us to the flag-raising soldiers forced to stump around for the war effort in mid-40's America. I get it. It wasn't all fun and glory. Can we get back to the drama and turmoil of the battle, where there's a reasonably compelling story?
Schmaltz and repetition aside, it's of course a very solid film - which is the only kind Eastwood ever seems to deliver.
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