Letters from Iwo Jima
A new entry about the Second World War has come out on USA Erklärt which explicitly mentions this film. In fact, it says that among “Letters from Iwo Jima” and “Flags of our Fathers” only the former is recommendable. From what I read about “Flags of our Fathers”, I too agree that the storyline sounds too awful for its own good.
“Letters from Iwo Jima” however is quite a masterpiece. I wonder how Prog feels about it, as I remember that the film was among one of his favorites of 2007, but my own feelings towards the film are very conflicting. It all starts with myself being a horrible pussy who cringes every single time I see somebody dying; or more like, I knew from the beginning of the film that all of these people are going to die and just thinking that makes me want to cry. I am very familiar with the Japanese mentality and find it depicted wonderfully in this film, with all its criticism at the same time. Much more than your average war movie (LOL Black Hawk Down is a joke compared to “Letters from Iwo Jima”), this film is going to haunt me with the portrayal of characters and the tragedy of their deaths.
Unlike a typical war movie, I think it’s rather unusual that we know from the beginning that practically all these soldiers are going to die by the end of the attack. All of them. This is pointed out ever since the beginning of the film and we just waiting for everyone of them to die. I didn’t want to like the characters, but ultimately I had to. While Saigo is mostly a human being (and very likable in that way), Kuribayashi is my favorite. This is mostly because he is the only capable strategist in the whole story, and his movie character seems to be close to the historical figure.
I find war movies to be the most straining of all, and I am not sure when I will be able to watch a film like this again. I am glad we will not be having wars like these anymore, and I am afraid humanity will probably never learn. I don’t believe in history repeating itself, I rather believe that we will face different problems and issues with every new generation. That makes it even more difficult for a film like this one to be properly understood. Humans will never make “the same mistakes” again, they will make different, probably even worse ones.
From what I can see, “Letters from Iwo Jima” is clearly the best film of the year 2007. The only reason for not seeing this film would probably be a general disliking for war movies.