2 of 4

Looming over Saigo like a legend, Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi (Watanabe) is the film's most impressive figure. He was, as the film portrays him, charming and dignified, respected by American officers, and known for sketching pictures of his experiences. (Those sketches are included in a book called Picture Letters From Commander in Chief, one of the film's primary inspirations.) Sent to lead the Iwo Jima defense after another officer refused, Kuribayashi arrives and takes control, causing controversy among the men but winning our admiration with his compassion and his old-fashioned sensibilities. He'd rather walk than get in a car; he'd rather talk about horses than tanks. And we feel his pain as his nation abandons him to strategize with disobedient, disrespectful officers while Americans overwhelm the island.

Ryo Kase as Shimizu

His friend, Baron Nishi (Tsuyoshi Ihara), also visited the U.S. for the 1932 Olympics, where he won a gold medal in an equestrian event. Nishi wins our sympathy through his love for horses and the mercy he gives to an American captive. In fact, Nishi is the one who makes the boldest statements in the film, striving to convince his fellow soldiers that the Americans are just like them. "Do what is right because it is right," he tells them.

When a traumatized member of the Kempeitai military police, Shimizu (Ryo Kase), shows up, he raises the anxieties of his fellow soldiers who suspect he's come to spy on them. But Eastwood's inclusion of Shimizu as the representative of the Kempeitai is just one example of how his selections heavily influence us to view the Japanese as not merely human, but as equivalents to the Allied soldiers in almost every way. What begins as compassion becomes a distortion. Why is it that of the notoriously wicked Japanese military police, Eastwood chooses to focus on a character who can't even follow orders to shoot an animal, much less harm a human being? Even more tellingly, this officer ends up falling into the hands of a barbaric American soldier. A little irony goes a long way, but this?

Yes, Eastwood and his screenwriters, Iris Yamashita and Crash-scribe Paul Haggis, have taken their compassion much too far. In his New York Times review, A.O. Scott writes, "It is hard to think of another war movie that has gone so deeply, so sensitively, into the mind-set of the opposing side." To that I would add, it's hard to think of a war film that works so hard to make us fall in love with the enemy, and to airbrush their portraits.

Eastwood on the set with Watanabe

It's one thing to learn to love your enemies. It's another thing to view them through rose-colored glasses. We also need to honor the memory of those Allied forces who suffered from Japanese tactics and agendas, which are largely erased from this picture.

Yes, in almost any war you can find soldiers on both sides doing disgraceful things. (For example, it would be foolish for Americans to talk about the "war on terror" without mentioning Abu Ghraib.) And it is right for Eastwood to acknowledge this. But World War II was fought for compelling reasons, and its armies operated under different notions of duty and dignity. Eastwood has done nothing to prevent viewers from accepting these likeable, good-natured, conscientious characters as representative of the Japanese forces. It's hard to imagine that men like these were guilty of so many war crimes against millions of POWs and civilians. (Look up "the Rape of Nanking," or read about the Japanese treatment of POWs, for starters. You find a very different picture there.) The Japanese Imperialist forces were some of the most barbaric in recent history.

You might guess that Flags would be the film most likely to win acclaim at the upcoming Oscars. Letters, by comparison, is unconventional. It's a foreign-language film, with only a few fleeting glimpses of American soldiers up close. Ken Watanabe, who made a strong impression in The Last Samurai, and threatened Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins, is probably the only actor you'll recognize. It's about the losing side, not the victors. And there's no love story to sweeten the descent of these Japanese soldiers on the island equivalent of The Titanic. Normally, a film so lacking in glamour and inspiration would be treated as an admirable novelty.

next page... |  2 of 4