BACK-STORY: “Letters from Iwo Jima” is Clint Eastwood’s
companion piece to "Flags of Our Fathers".
They were filmed back to back. It
is the Battle of Iwo Jima from the Japanese perspective. It is based on the letters of the Japanese
commander Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi and the book So Sad to Fall in Battle
by Kumiko Kakehashi. The movie was
filmed in California with a one day shoot on Iwo Jima. The film was well received by critics and
made numerous top ten lists. It was a
big hit in Japan, but did not do very well in the States (those damned subtitles!). It was nominated for Academy Awards for
Picture, Director and Original Screenplay and won for Sound Effects. The original title was supposed to be “Red
Sun, Black Sand” ( which was apparently too cool ).
OPENING: A group of Japanese archeologists are excavating
a cave on Iwo Jima in 2005. They uncover
letters written by members of the garrison, including Gen. Kuribayashi.
SUMMARY: In 1944, a sad sack named Saigo (Kazunari
Ninomiya) is digging a trench and cynically grousing about whether the island
is worth fighting for. A flashback
reveals that he is a conscripted baker who was torn from his pregnant
wife. Not all Japanese soldiers were
fanatics. Lt. Tanida (Takumi Bando)
starts caning him but is stopped by the newly arrived Kuribayashi (Ken
Watanabe). The general halts the digging
of trenches on the beaches and changes the defense plan to reflect his belief
that the Americans can not be stopped from establishing a beachhead. He intends a defense in depth (literally,
through caves and tunnels). This change
does not go over well with some of his subordinates who are more the banzai
types. Kuribayashi finds a kindred
spirit in his tank commander. Col. Nishi
is an Olympic hero having competed in the equestrian events.
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| "I don't see a fleet. What did you say CGI means?" |
When the invasion commences,
Saigo is an ammunition bearer on Mount Suribachi. When Tanida orders his unit to commit suicide
(against Kuribayashi’s orders), Saigo and Shimizu decide a grenade held to
their chests is not for them. They cross
a bullet-infested no man’s land after dark to reach the other side of the
island. They are about to be executed by
the fanatical Lt. Ito (Shido Nakamura) when Kuribayashi intervenes. Later, Ito straps some land mines across his
chest and goes out to suicide bomb an American tank. Where’s a tank when you need one? He returns frustrated.
Saigo and Shimizu are now with
the noble (literally, he was a baron) Nishi.
Nishi insists on treating a wounded American prisoner humanely. He also reads aloud the soldier’s letter to
his mother. If it wasn’t for this war
… (Nishi has been outside Japan and flashbacks
apprise us of Kuribayashi’s pleasant stay in America before the war – good
Japanese officers are not zenophobic.)
This contrasts with an earlier scene where a G.I. (Iggy from “Flags of
Our Fathers”?) was bayoneted to death after being captured. Shimizu’s backstory (via flashback) reveals
that he was thrown out of the Kampeitai because he refused to shoot a dog. (In movies, the killing of dogs is the best
measure of a characters morality.) Nishi
is blinded by shrapnel and orders his men to escape. He commits suicide using his big toe to
trigger his rifle. (The movie is a good
tutorial on the various methods of Japanese suicides. Although it surprisingly leaves out seppuku.)
Saigo and Shimizu decide to
surrender. Shimizu manages to get
captured and is about to say “who needs a thousand stitch belt?” when the
Americans guarding him decide they are bored.
Saigo meets up with Kuribayashi.
He saves Saigo’s life a third time by appointing him burner of documents
including letters. The general goes off
to lead that banzai charge he had been reining in for the whole battle.
CLOSING: Saigo buries the letters because he is a big fan
of archeology. Kuribayashi leads the
attack but is wounded. His loyal minion
Lt. Fujita (Hiroshi Watanabe) carries him from the battlefield. The next morning as the sun rises,
Kuribayashi insists on beheading.
Unfortunately, Fujita is sniped mid-stoke. Saigo arrives soon after and assists the
general by giving him the .45 that Kuribayashi had been presented by his
American hosts. Saigo defies all odds (and
the script?) to be taken alive.
WOULD CHICKS DIG IT? Unlikely.
It is pretty grim and it is an almost all male cast. The combat is not particularly graphic and
the characters are well developed. The
movie does have less machismo than most war movies.
HISTORICAL ACCURACY: Kuribayashi was from the samurai caste. In the late 1920s, he was a military attaché in
the United States. He toured the country
in a car and was impressed with America’s industrial capacity and felt it would
fight hard in the event of war with Japan. He then served in the cavalry in
China and then was Chief of Staff in Hong Kong.
In 1943, he was appointed commander of the Imperial Guard in Tokyo. In 1944, Tojo summoned him and gave him
command of Iwo Jima. Some historians
posit that this was punishment for a fire set in the barracks by one of his
cadets. When he arrived on the island in
June, he was greeted by hundreds of school children waving flags and singing
patriotic songs. (The movie does not
show this.) A few days later, U.S.
fighters attacked and returned the next day for more bombing and strafing. A fortnight later, another raid resulted in
the shooting down of 66 Japanese fighters.
Starting in August, the island was bombed almost daily (a fact that is
not shown in the film). By the time of
the invasion, the consistent bombing had deprived the island of almost all its
fighter planes, but had done little damage to the underground defenses.
In August, Rear Admiral Ichimaru
arrived with 2,300 naval reinforcemnents and he took command of the island’s
naval forces. Ichimaru was a disciple of
the standard Japanese doctrine of defending the beaches. Kuribayashi looked at the results of Saipan
and realized that without air and naval support, the beach defenses would not
survive the bombardment and onslaught.
He ended up compromising a bit by allowing some pillboxes close to the
beach. The vast majority of the effort
was put into caves, tunnels, and other underground defenses. These were not only extensive and elaborate,
but virtually bomb proof. Nishi’s tanks
were emplaced.
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| "Thanks, if I ever don't have a sword, this will come in handy" |
The movie short-changes the two
day pre-landing naval bombardment. It
was the heaviest of the war. It does a
good job of showing the Japanese soldiers surviving in the caves. It also does a fair job of depicting the lack
of food, water, and ammunition. Also
realistic is the undoubted fact that not all the Japanese were fanatics who
wanted to die. However, Saigo and
Shimizu probably over-represent the soldiers who wanted to survive. Just as the emphasis on Kuribayashi and Nishi
tends to dilute the reality of Japanese officers being martinets. The movie does an excellent job with
Kuribayashi and Nishi. The general’s
tactics are proper. The moment in the
film where he pretends to defend a stretch of the beach while a staff officer
runs around in front of him actually happened.
He did allow the Americans to land and held fire until they were
inland. He forbade human wave assaults
and suicides. He encouraged the men to
give up ground as grudgingly as possible.
Nishi is a fascinating
personage. Colonel Baron Takeichi Nishi
(and his famous horse Uranus) won the gold medal in show jumping at the 1932
Los Angeles Olympics. He was a celebrity
and was acquainted with movie stars like Mary Pickford and Douglas
Fairbanks. He went on to compete in the
1936 Munich Olympics, but fell from his horse (possibly to allow Japan’s future
ally to win the event). He naturally was
in Japan’s cavalry and transitioned into the tank corps. When he was a transferring to Iwo, all 26 of
his tanks were sunk. Later, he was able
to get 22 in time for the battle.
The film is not meant to be instructive
as to the battle. In fact, it is
difficult to tell what the big picture is and what the time frame is. The movie is more on a personal level. And many of the characters are actual figures
from the battle. I am referring to the
officers, of course. Several key
incidents in the movie are based on reality.
Some officers like Tanida did encourage their men to use grenades to
commit suicide (against Kuribayashi’s orders).
In the movie, Ito leads an aborted banzai attack. Ito’s attempt at becoming a human bomb was
based on Lt. Satoru Omagari who was unsuceesful in waiting for a tank to blow
up. In reality, Gen. Senda did lead an
attack to try to recover Mt. Suribachi.
The song Kuribayashi listens to from Japanese school children during the
battle really happened. It was called
“The Song of Iwo Jima”.
The small
details are accurate. The Kempeitai,
which means “Military Police Corps” was the Japanese secret police from
1881-1945. It was noted for its
brutality and certainly would have killed a dog for barking. A Senninbari, or “thousand stitch belt”, was
a strip of cloth that had stitches from one thousand different women. It was an amulet that was supposed to protect
the wearer. The various methods of
suicide are instructive. Everyone is
familiar with hari-kari, but the use of grenades and rifles is less well-known. I first encountered these methods in reading
about the Battle of Tarawa when I was younger.
After all, regular soldiers would not have had access to katanas and
there rifles were too long to point and fire normally, hence having to use your
big toe to pull the trigger.
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| I am going to keep my helmet on for protection while I hold this grenade to my chest |
The deaths of Nishi and
Kuribayashi are problematical. Nishi
suffered burns to his eyes. He did lead
an attack but it was halted by severe fire and he then probably committed
suicide by shooting himself. He did not
believe in seppuku. It seems likely he
would have used a pistol instead of a rifle.
Kuribayashi planned to lead the last attack with 500 men, but he changed
his mind and instead led the men to a new position. He apparently was wounded in the
process. It is unknown how he died, but
the best guess is it was by way of seppuku at the mouth of the cave he was
in. It is extremely unlikely that it
occurred as depicted in the film. In
fact, his death is one of the weakest moments in the film.
CRITIQUE: “Letters from Iwo Jima” is an extremely well made
film. Eastwood obviously was intent on
creating a masterpiece. He does this in
a non-Tarantino way. The cinematography
is a bit artsy with the now familiar washed out look. Appropriate for a volcanic ash island. The combat is of the “Band of Brothers”
style, although the movie is light on action.
What there is is intense, but not particularly graphic. The score conforms to this by being
understated. The opposite of the pompous
music of most war epics. You won’t remember
the movie for its sound track. In fact,
there is a notable lack of music in the film.
The subterranean sets are amazing.
Very claustrophobic.
The movie relies on characterizations to propel
the narrative. The main characters are
well developed and appealing. They are
fleshed out and not just from the flashbacks.
This is especially significant because it is so rare to see the war
through Japanese eyes. Plus Eastwood
balances the officers with the enlisted.
I feel I have to point out that all the major characters are noble,
which is a pretty ridiculously high percentage for the Japanese Army. The only typical Japanese soldiers are minor
characters. Hell even the kampeitai member
turns out to be unfanatical. Kuribayashi
is virtually saintly. Saigo is likeable
and you want him to live to get back to his wife and newborn. The fact that the audience gets its wish is
evidence that Eastwood pulls his punches on the anti-war theme. The dialogue is fine, but there are few lines
that are memorable. It was a nice touch
to liberally quote from the actual letters.
The
acting by the ensemble is excellent.
Wattanabe is perfect as Kuribayashi and was a wise marketing
choice. If the movie had been made twenty
years earlier, the role would have gone to Toshiro Mifune. The surprise is Kazunari Ninomiya as
Saigo. He is a huge pop star in Japan. He plays sad sack conscript well. (His survival in the movie was probably a
recognition of what his death’s impact would have had on Japan’s teenage
girls.)
The film has some obvious themes
that are hard to miss. One is that most
of the soldiers just wanted to survive.
This is a bit of a stretch when it comes to the Japanese army, but it’s
a nice change from the way their soldiers were depicted in previous movies. The movie is very sympathetic toward the
Japanese. It’s revisionist in this respect. (As a history buff I should mention that
revisionism is often wrong.) A related
theme is that we’re all humans and have human needs and emotions. The movie is quite humanistic. Possibly more than the dirty war in the
Pacific deserves. An interesting aspect
of the script is how it balances some of the scenes. At one point a captured American soldier is
bayoneted to death and then later, under similar circumstances, another is
treated humanely. The death of Shimizu
and the capture of Saigo are also mirrored.
The plot is simplistic, but accomplishes its goal of retelling the
battle from the Japanese perspective effectively.
CONCLUSION: When you
pair off “Flags of Our Fathers” and “Letters from Iwo Jima”, you have a
magnificent achievement for Clint Eastwood.
Credit should also be given to the producers who bank-rolled these risky
projects. Only Eastwood could have
pulled off dual films about the Battle of Iwo Jima. They are so different, yet the pair cover the
pivotal battle as well as could ever have been expected. The dual perspective has been done before in
movies like “Tora! Tora! Tora!” and “The Longest Day”, but “Flags” and
“Letters” are unique in covering the same battle not only from different
perspectives, but with totally different themes. Both are commendable for bringing light to
worthy historical topics. So both fit
one of my qualifications for great war movies.
The fact that neither is great simply means they fall a little short in
execution.
I am in the distinct minority who
feel that “Letters” is overrated. I
admire it and think it is a significant addition to war movie history. However, partly due to its humanistic themes
and perspective, most critics wanted to love it more than it deserved. As a person who has read a lot on the war in
the Pacific, I can attest to the revisionist nature of the
characterizations. I am not saying that
Kuribayashi and Nishi are unrealistically depicted, but I do feel that the
movie gives an inaccurate depiction of the defenders of the island. No wonder it did well in Japan. It showed the way modern Japanese want to
remember the defenders.
Now I’ll go further on a limb, I
feel “Flags” is the better war movie. It is more accurate and has a more
important story to tell.
RATINGS:
Acting - A
Action - 7/10
Accuracy - B
Realism - B
Plot - B
Cliches - B
GRADE = B
THE TRAILER
