Eastwoods twin masterpieces. Review on Letters from Iwo Jima Movie

If you want to know who is the best director today in hollywood, sit down and watch this and its accompanyiny twin FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS from the masterful writer director CLINT EASTWOOD .

the two are shot back to back  on the same location, the island of iwojima which witnessed the most horrifying massacre of japanese army by the US marines, as unofficially they were told not to take any prisoners of war and the japanese were obliged to fight to their death or commit suicide, the soldiers who surrendered were tortured and killed, and the movie shows the facts without being squeamish as it is shot from the japanese perspective in japanese language with an authentic japanese cast representing the factual characters .

This was the last line of defense between the marines and mainland japan and the japanese had lost the battles in okinawa, midway and mariana, so basically they were putting up a symbolic resistance with the full knoweledge that japan had been defeated, they were desperate and illequipped with no aircover or food and very little ammunition against an enemy who was invincible with its numerical and technical superoirity and prowess, their lines of communication with japan were blocked by sea or air and all they could do was write letters to their families back home which never got posted but they wrote of their hopes and desires like all human beings hoping for a miracle that we expect but never happens, the letters which were discovered from the cavernous caves of suirabachi in 2005 are the pretext on which the movie is based but the experience of watching it is too real to compare with any written words .

this is a brutal, realistic yet poetic account of the futility of war and it shows that war and heroism is a compromise that we have to make when we have no other choices of survival, yet its a tribute to the valour of the men who are shown blowing themselves and their opponents with grenades and being torched alive in their cavernous defenses they have built to defend themselves, yet they never let go of optimism and the camaraderie amongst them is examplary .

Every sequence is stunning and the war scenes are the best ive ever witnessed as they were in the flags of our fathers but here they are reversed with the japanese in charge under general kiryabichi [ken watanabe ]and baron nishi who play their roles with great dignity and aplomb, their dilemmas and desperation equally matched by their resilience and compassion towards their fellow japanese and the marines .

they are both aristocratic and have been to mainland USA before the war and nishi is a handsome devil who won the gold medal as the best rider at LA olympics in 1932, he has brought his horse with him to the island, the early demise of the animal in a bomb raid shows his anguish as a father towards a childs death, the general was friends with americas military cream before the war and he holds onto the antique  colt given to him as a gift by his american friends at a banquet in his honor before the war till his last breath.

the emotions are beautifully captured in the scene where nishi tries to save an injured us marine from kansas and their short conversation reflects on the similarities of human needs and desires irrespective of race or religion and how easy it is to be friends rather then enemies even in a desperate situation, for me that scene alone makes this a masterpiece and I applaud both eastwood and spielberg [the co-producer ]for giving a great message to todays troubled humanity .

technically the movie is a masterpiece from every angle, whether its the sparse background score or sound editing or the CGI, it is perfection, the caves are choreographed as masterfully as the beach combat and the aerial raids are too real to describe with the perspective of the pilots as well as the ground defenders .

this is a war movie which actually will make you shun war in its totaliarianism and political motivations  and manipulations

is there any need for war in modern world or in the past world and has it ever solved any problems is the question posed here and the answer is on the screen .

A round of double applause for mr eastwood

cheers oz. Do leave comments if not about the movie then about war itself.