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Letters from Iwo Jima Our rating: Rate this movie   MPAA rating: R (for graphic war violence) Genre: Historical, War Theater release: December 20, 2006 by Warner Bros. Pictures Directed by: Clint Eastwood Runtime: 2 hours 21 minutes Cast: Kazunari Ninomiya (Saigo), Ken Watanabe (Lt. Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi), Tsuyoshi Ihara (Baron Nishi), Ryo Kase (Shimizu), Shidou Nakamura (Lieutenant Ito), Nae (Hanako) Related: Talk About It/Family Corner

"Am I digging my own grave?" young Saigo wonders as he helps his fellow Japanese soldiers shovel out bunkers in the dark sand beneath Mt. Surabachi. And because we know the outcome of the Battle of Iwo Jima, we can make an educated guess at the answer to his question.

In an unprecedented work of ambition and vision, Clint Eastwood has released two films in one year about that historic battle: Flags of Our Fathers, which illustrates the American experience of the conflict, and now Letters from Iwo Jima, which draws us into the experience of the outnumbered, ill-equipped Japanese defeated in that battle in 1945.

The two films, produced with lifelike intensity and meticulous attention to period detail, mirror each other with subtlety and cleverness.

Flags asks us to reconsider American notions of heroism. Letters asks us to assess the Japanese concept of dignity, even confronting us with the grisly reality of the soldiers' suicide tactics, which they carry out in the name of "honor." (Watch out—the combat scenes are extravagantly bloody.)

Kazunari Ninomiya as Saigo

Flags shows us the incongruity between the images of glorious heroism delivered to the American public, and the nightmares of battlefield reality. Letters shows a similar disconnect, as Japanese soldiers collapse in hopelessness while inspirational radio broadcasts from the homeland convey confidence of victory.

Flags shows U.S. authorities "revising" stories from the front lines in order to inspire the American people. Letters portrays soldiers who write letters home, only to see censors clip out anything judged "unpatriotic."

Both films show us soldiers who behave with dignity, and others who become barbaric on the battlefield.

But Letters from Iwo Jima is distinguished by something rarely seen in American war films. To craft a work of art that allows us to enter the minds of our enemies, recognize their humanity, and come to care for them—that is as noble a gesture as an artist can make. "Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you," Jesus said. It's much easier and more invigorating to think of the enemy as soulless devils; all the better for mowing them down with machine guns.

And at first glance Letters from Iwo Jima seems like an inspired endeavor to portray the enemy with compassion and dignity. That's why film critics across the country are falling over themselves to heap superlatives on Eastwood's efforts. For many years, American media helped establish lamentable Japanese stereotypes, so it's about time an American director stepped in to consider the Japanese experience with some care.

Further to its credit, Letters from Iwo Jima illustrates—with drama, detail, strong performances, and technical mastery—the sufferings of the Japanese as they fought. It's one thing to read about how they were outnumbered, plagued with dysentery, starving, crippled by communication breakdowns, and torn between divided superiors. It's another thing to let Eastwood take us into that situation.

Ken Watanabe as General Kuribayashi

Aesthetically, Letters is one of the best war films ever made. Tom Stern casts the chaos in muted colors until it's almost a black-and-white film, just as he did for Flags. This gives the film the look of archival footage, even as it enhances the chilly, forbidding character of the island. Against this backdrop, the Japanese flags stand out bold and red, and when the U.S. bombers make their first strike, almost an hour into the film, the explosions are jarringly colorful.

The film's episodic structure follows the simple-but-effective pattern employed every week on TV's Lost. We meet the characters in a crisis, and then we come to appreciate them by getting flashbacks to their past. Letters focuses on four central characters:

Saigo (Kazunari Ninomiya) is the film's childlike hero, a young baker forced to leave behind his cute young wife Hanako (Nae) and their unborn child. Easily frustrated with his superiors, and unprepared for the hell about to be unleashed, Saigo is almost impossible to dislike. And as we watch him forced to carry pots of his fellow soldiers' waste out of their death-trap tunnels on Mt. Surabachi, well, we want this guy to catch a break.

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