Under a watchful eye of grim, bleak cinematography as soldiers initially sit; dig; bicker and wait, Clint Eastwood delivers his-then second war film in as many years in Letters From Iwo Jima, 2007's follow up to the equally as bleak, but more-so by way of the results of warfare from a propagandist driven viewpoint, Flags of Our Fathers. In providing a dim, looming and cloudy feel about things, something that balances that sense of dread and prolonged fear born out of the potential of warfare, Eastwood has given us something common-place but easy to be affected by. This, as well as tapping into both some pretty familiar and basic character archetypes plus respective point-in-life situations, but presenting them in a way that'll see us come to care about them.
The film begins in a similar manner to the 2005 South Korean war film Brotherhood, in the sense an archaeological dig at a site, this time on the island of Iwo Jima located in the area of the Pacific, leads those partaking to uncover an item that might lead to answers from war-torn days of old. From this brief contemporary day setting, the film shoots back to the very island of Iwo Jima in latter-day World War Two as Japanese soldiers wait and do their best to set up able defences of the island to halt the Americans, whom are due an attempt to try and invade it. While the films are not be linked in any form of physicality, such as the case of a bother on one side and a brother on the other in Brotherhood, the American-perspective-Pacific-theatre-set Flags of Our Fathers was produced in such close proximity to Letters From Iwo Jima that it links the two pieces by way of taking something ugly and getting two different viewpoints of it, just without the immediate blood bond. These soldiers are all linked to one another by way of fear, raw human emotion and the victimisation they must suffer through instigated by hierarchy.
Most of Eastwood's films have an odd, nostalgic aura to them – perhaps born out of the fact most of them take place in the past. They don't revel in obligatory scenes nor pour on sentiment, rather, Eastwood is able to deliver dramatic films by way of the studies he makes of his characters and their arcs. Rather a few of his films revolve around the victim of whatever piece, usually a character or collection of characters whose lifestyle has been so dominantly one thing up until a point in which the conditions of their living and the very world around them dramatically changes; thus rendering them an outsider on their own turf.
Examples of this would include Gran Torino, Changeling and the first part of this World War II double-header Flags of Our Fathers; powerful stories were delivered about an elderly man; a middle aged woman and a group of everyday American soldiers, respectively, whose place in the world around them changes when the world itself undertakes a strange transition. Changeling's lead dominated single parenthood and the working life they lead, but their world took a turn for the worse once their son was kidnapped. Flags of Our Fathers sees a group of American troops taken to a propaganda-strewn dystopia in the time it takes to capture a photographic image, while in Gran Torino, the transition of the lead's surroundings has been all of around thirty years in the making, before this equally wired and wonderful world opens up all sorts of new social dangers and delights.
Letters From Iwo Jima sees Eastwood rather impressively transfer this technique he has of delivering these somewhat basic, somewhat generic conventions plus familiar character arcs into this film; here rendering certain front-line individuals in the Japanese Army, circa 1944, the central focus. In avoiding a deliberate stone wall protagonist, but opting for the sort of content that might be perceived as otherwise melodramatic, what with the situation back home for a specific private in which he has a happy marriage; his own business and a first-born on the way, Eastwood projects a somewhat overly familiar heart-tugging character devise onto a character, but it sort of works. This, as we observe what are essentially victims we know are in a win-less and desperate situation play out whatever anger-infused and futile actions they partake in.
Most of the opening hour is dedicated to soldiers sitting around, bantering with one another; digging trenches and generally getting ready for what they'll estimate to be a long, bloody battle. The realities of war in the treating of fellow human beings by those of a higher rank is put across by way of a drill Sergeant who punishes those for stepping out of line. The privates write back to their wives and relatives; they feast on whatever small rice meals exist; they talk to the ones they entrust most about how much they hate doing menial tasks and that general feeling that moral is low is got across. Most of the opening is all non-eventing and foreboding, as a general arrives and points out numerous flaws in the present soldiers' defence strategies, this before a higher-up is relieved of his command thus placing the platoon into an array of disruption; whilst systematically foreshadowing the disarray and chaos that'll unravel on the battlefield within the Japanese ranks.
When the first glance of the Americans within general proximity of the island occurs, the instance is cruelly juxtaposed by a private charged with emptying a makeshift toilet over a cliff edge; with promise of wrath if he looses the crude tin pot. There are scenes of warfare, sure; and Eastwood provides us with some harrowing instances of death and despair, more disturbing than most in the form of Japanese suicides and Japanese-on-Japanese killings. Eastwood additionally makes the rarefied presence of the American troops throughout the film a frightening presence, which I wound perturbing. The film is quite the little war genre achievement.
The film begins in a similar manner to the 2005 South Korean war film Brotherhood, in the sense an archaeological dig at a site, this time on the island of Iwo Jima located in the area of the Pacific, leads those partaking to uncover an item that might lead to answers from war-torn days of old. From this brief contemporary day setting, the film shoots back to the very island of Iwo Jima in latter-day World War Two as Japanese soldiers wait and do their best to set up able defences of the island to halt the Americans, whom are due an attempt to try and invade it. While the films are not be linked in any form of physicality, such as the case of a bother on one side and a brother on the other in Brotherhood, the American-perspective-Pacific-theatre-set Flags of Our Fathers was produced in such close proximity to Letters From Iwo Jima that it links the two pieces by way of taking something ugly and getting two different viewpoints of it, just without the immediate blood bond. These soldiers are all linked to one another by way of fear, raw human emotion and the victimisation they must suffer through instigated by hierarchy.
Most of Eastwood's films have an odd, nostalgic aura to them – perhaps born out of the fact most of them take place in the past. They don't revel in obligatory scenes nor pour on sentiment, rather, Eastwood is able to deliver dramatic films by way of the studies he makes of his characters and their arcs. Rather a few of his films revolve around the victim of whatever piece, usually a character or collection of characters whose lifestyle has been so dominantly one thing up until a point in which the conditions of their living and the very world around them dramatically changes; thus rendering them an outsider on their own turf.
Examples of this would include Gran Torino, Changeling and the first part of this World War II double-header Flags of Our Fathers; powerful stories were delivered about an elderly man; a middle aged woman and a group of everyday American soldiers, respectively, whose place in the world around them changes when the world itself undertakes a strange transition. Changeling's lead dominated single parenthood and the working life they lead, but their world took a turn for the worse once their son was kidnapped. Flags of Our Fathers sees a group of American troops taken to a propaganda-strewn dystopia in the time it takes to capture a photographic image, while in Gran Torino, the transition of the lead's surroundings has been all of around thirty years in the making, before this equally wired and wonderful world opens up all sorts of new social dangers and delights.
Letters From Iwo Jima sees Eastwood rather impressively transfer this technique he has of delivering these somewhat basic, somewhat generic conventions plus familiar character arcs into this film; here rendering certain front-line individuals in the Japanese Army, circa 1944, the central focus. In avoiding a deliberate stone wall protagonist, but opting for the sort of content that might be perceived as otherwise melodramatic, what with the situation back home for a specific private in which he has a happy marriage; his own business and a first-born on the way, Eastwood projects a somewhat overly familiar heart-tugging character devise onto a character, but it sort of works. This, as we observe what are essentially victims we know are in a win-less and desperate situation play out whatever anger-infused and futile actions they partake in.
Most of the opening hour is dedicated to soldiers sitting around, bantering with one another; digging trenches and generally getting ready for what they'll estimate to be a long, bloody battle. The realities of war in the treating of fellow human beings by those of a higher rank is put across by way of a drill Sergeant who punishes those for stepping out of line. The privates write back to their wives and relatives; they feast on whatever small rice meals exist; they talk to the ones they entrust most about how much they hate doing menial tasks and that general feeling that moral is low is got across. Most of the opening is all non-eventing and foreboding, as a general arrives and points out numerous flaws in the present soldiers' defence strategies, this before a higher-up is relieved of his command thus placing the platoon into an array of disruption; whilst systematically foreshadowing the disarray and chaos that'll unravel on the battlefield within the Japanese ranks.
When the first glance of the Americans within general proximity of the island occurs, the instance is cruelly juxtaposed by a private charged with emptying a makeshift toilet over a cliff edge; with promise of wrath if he looses the crude tin pot. There are scenes of warfare, sure; and Eastwood provides us with some harrowing instances of death and despair, more disturbing than most in the form of Japanese suicides and Japanese-on-Japanese killings. Eastwood additionally makes the rarefied presence of the American troops throughout the film a frightening presence, which I wound perturbing. The film is quite the little war genre achievement.