I'm trying hard to recall the war movies I've seen that offer a balance between the humanity and atrocity of two opposing sides the way "Letters From Iwo Jima" does, and I can't think of one. That is where the film excels, and if one has trouble calling it an anti-war movie, at least it's a pro-life one. The film surpasses Eastwood's tandem effort, "Flags Of Our Fathers" in my estimation, but then, they are two quite different films, even though they have the same historical battle at their core.
What's difficult to understand, even as the movie makes clear, is the average Japanese soldiers' willingness to die in battle for honor and duty to the Emperor and homeland. My summary line above was spoken by a Japanese officer, stated without reservation or with intimation of victory or defeat, but as a matter of fact. It's hard to imagine that an entire nation operated on that principal just a little over a half century ago.
The vignette pieces of Eastwood's film serve the story well, as the backdrop of the invasion creates a realization that Iwo Jima will fall without additional Japanese troops or air cover to provide reinforcement. Perhaps wisely, the statistics of the thirty six day battle in March, 1945 are intentionally left out. They are grim, of twenty two thousand defenders on Iwo Jima, only 217 prisoners were taken, the rest fell in battle or to suicide to avoid the humiliation of capture by the enemy. American casualties topped six thousand, with another nineteen thousand wounded, requiring the use of whole blood and plasma on a scale never utilized in combat before. Reflecting on those numbers is a totally inadequate exercise and virtually impossible to comprehend, and yet this was a single battle field in the Pacific theater.
If you care to learn more of this battle and the war in the Pacific, an excellent resource is the documentary series "Crusade In The Pacific", utilizing film footage from cameramen on both sides of the War. One of the episodes deals with "Bloody Iwo", and the viewer will be stunned as I was to see how closely Eastwood's depiction of the landing, invasion and ensuing battle resembles the real thing. Both the documentary and "Letters" will leave you with the impression that our global leaders still haven't gotten it figured out yet, that war is devastating and senseless, and we never truly learn from the mistakes of the past.
What's difficult to understand, even as the movie makes clear, is the average Japanese soldiers' willingness to die in battle for honor and duty to the Emperor and homeland. My summary line above was spoken by a Japanese officer, stated without reservation or with intimation of victory or defeat, but as a matter of fact. It's hard to imagine that an entire nation operated on that principal just a little over a half century ago.
The vignette pieces of Eastwood's film serve the story well, as the backdrop of the invasion creates a realization that Iwo Jima will fall without additional Japanese troops or air cover to provide reinforcement. Perhaps wisely, the statistics of the thirty six day battle in March, 1945 are intentionally left out. They are grim, of twenty two thousand defenders on Iwo Jima, only 217 prisoners were taken, the rest fell in battle or to suicide to avoid the humiliation of capture by the enemy. American casualties topped six thousand, with another nineteen thousand wounded, requiring the use of whole blood and plasma on a scale never utilized in combat before. Reflecting on those numbers is a totally inadequate exercise and virtually impossible to comprehend, and yet this was a single battle field in the Pacific theater.
If you care to learn more of this battle and the war in the Pacific, an excellent resource is the documentary series "Crusade In The Pacific", utilizing film footage from cameramen on both sides of the War. One of the episodes deals with "Bloody Iwo", and the viewer will be stunned as I was to see how closely Eastwood's depiction of the landing, invasion and ensuing battle resembles the real thing. Both the documentary and "Letters" will leave you with the impression that our global leaders still haven't gotten it figured out yet, that war is devastating and senseless, and we never truly learn from the mistakes of the past.