Letters From Iwo Jima

I’m no World War II scholar, but I know the basics of what happened in that bloody war. I have also been to Pearl Harbor and walked through the war museum there, seen the map that outlined the various attacks that not only brought the United States into the war in the Pacific but led up to the invasion of Iwo Jima towards the end of it. I have also seen several films that depicted the battle on Iwo Jima and am familiar with the iconic photo of American soldiers raising the flag, a photograph that won Joe Rosenthal the Pulitzer Prize. What I was not familiar with was the perspective of the Japanese soldiers who were stationed on that little island, mostly cut off from news of the war but tasked with defending the island so that it could not be used by American troops to attack mainland Japan. 

War movies rarely look at that side of the war. We see plenty of films designed to bolster patriotism and promote American troops fighting great odds in the pursuit of victory and the end of the war, but we don’t get to focus on the enemy in those films. They are generally nameless villains, obstacles to overcome in the pursuit of that victory. Instinctually, we don’t want to focus on that because they are seen as the aggressors, as well as the ones who lost the battle or the war. Films like Wake Island went the route of portraying the defeated as soldiers who fought bravely and died for their country, but it was an American film depicting Americans. 

In the early 2000s, Clint Eastwood, partnered with Steven Spielberg and Robert Lorenz, set out to make a pair of movies that depicted Iwo Jima. These two films would look at this strategic battle from both sides. The two films, shot back-to-back and released just a few months apart, showed that every battle has two sides and that the soldiers involved are not just nameless foes deserving of being killed. These are men, honorable men, fighting for their country. They are also flawed individuals who are just as scared, brave, loyal, and human as the ones they are fighting against. Some are there because of their convictions and patriotism, some are there because they were drafted into the fight. There are also political machinations going on in the background that we only get a small taste of. Both films explore these aspects and more of one of the bloodiest battles in the Pacific.

The American side of this battle was depicted in Flags of Our Fathers, which released in October of 2006. Two months later, we got Letters from Iwo Jima. Flags of Our Fathers, though, felt more like any other film depicting the American invasion of the island, more of what we had already seen in films like Sands of Iwo Jima starring John Wayne. Though it was not overly expensive to produce, it failed at the box office. Letters from Iwo Jima, however, felt more fresh and was a new way of looking at this battle. It was a lot less expensive to make and made more money, ultimately putting the two films combined into profit. It also did better with critics and was ultimately nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, where Flags of Our Fathers went mostly ignored. 

Watching the two together, it is obvious that Letters From Iwo Jima is the more interesting of the two stories. We have already been inundated with films about American soldiers in all sorts of battles, including Iwo Jima, but we generally never see the Japanese soldiers in this light. The film opens with a bit of a mystery; an archeological team is investigating the caverns on Iwo Jima, carved out of the land by Japanese soldiers in anticipation of the American invasion. This team comes across something that they were not expecting. We learn at the end of the film that this is a buried parcel that includes letters buried by Private First Class Saigo (Kazunari Nimomiya), a baker who was conscripted into the Japanese army to fight to defend Iwo Jima. These letters were written by the soldiers while preparing and awaiting the incoming invasion. 

The bulk of the movie makes up that preparation, as well as the battle itself and the way the men, from all walks of life and views of their part in the war, deal with the war and their own mortality. These are not mindless soldiers blindly following orders, nor are they as disciplined and organized as we are led to believe from the American point of view. These are humans, just like the Americans, and some are more disciplined than others. 

One of the key players is Saigo, who has left behind his pregnant wife when he was called into service. We see how he reacts to the call as well as how the neighbors react when his wife begs for him not to go and leave her behind, almost guaranteed to be widowed by the war. The neighbors throw shame on her for daring not to mindlessly obey the call. He accepts the call, but we know how he feels based on an earlier scene when he is caught by his superior officer wishing to give up the island so that he can just go back home. He is beaten for this by his superior officer for being unpatriotic. 

We are also introduced to General Tadamichi Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe), who has just been reassigned to Iwo Jima. He comes in and immediately sees the flaws in the current plans for defense. The men are digging trenches on the beach with many of the men lamenting that they are just digging their own graves. Kuribayashi instead has the men dig tunnels underground, areas where they can better fortify their defenses. While this proves to be a wiser decision, it also causes him and Lieutenant Colonel Baron Takeichi (Tsuyoshi Ihara), a famous Olympic gold medalist show jumper who has spent time in America, to clash with the other officers. In a telling moment, we see an earlier scene when Baron was in America and asked at a formal dinner what he would do if his country went to war with America. He admits that he would do his duty for his country, something that surprises and bothers his fellow guests. 

The battle sequences are well staged and the gore is appropriate for what is being presented. But that is not what this film is really about and those moments, as brutal as they are, are sporadic. The worst of it is a moment when some of the men, pinned down, elect to commit suicide via hand grenades. It’s shocking to watch and the camera doesn’t shy away from the aftermath. This is not a film about the violence but it uses it to get the point across that these are people, too, fallible and vulnerable as we are.

Clint Eastwood elected to shoot this film almost entirely in Japanese, a choice that adds to the authenticity of events. He also got permission to film some of it on Iwo Jima, though much of it was shot elsewhere. He treats the subject and the people with a level of reverence that most films about the War in the Pacific don’t do. American audiences will find it hard to be rooting for the American troops because we not only see the Japanese as real people, fully fleshed out, but we get little of the politics that are the reason these two groups are at war in the first place. We know the reasons, of course, but they aren’t played up in this film. Pairing this up with Flags of our Fathers creates a bit of an emotional conflict, then, as we grow to like and understand both sides.

It’s an impressive feat to make us care for “the enemy” in a war film. We’re never asked to feel for the Nazis when watching something like Patton or Saving Private Ryan. Clint Eastwood accomplishes that level of understanding for the Japanese in this film. He also manages to remind us of the famous line attributed to George S. Patton in 1944: “…no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. You won it by making the other dumb bastard die for his country.” A lot of Japanese soldiers died on Iwo Jima, and that island serves as a tomb for many of them. We see most of the characters we come to like die before the credits roll, but Saigo, the one who didn’t want to fight and laments that he has a daughter at home he hasn’t even met, ends the film injured, defeated, but still alive. He looks at the sunset on the beach and smiles. 

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Picture: Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg, and Robert Lorenz

Best Director: Clint Eastwood

Best Original Screenplay: Iris Yamashita and Paul Haggis

Best Sound Editing: Alan Robert Murray and Bub Asman (won)

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Release Date: December 20, 2006

Running Time: 140 Minutes

Rated R

Starring: Ken Watanabe, Kazunari Ninomiya, Tsuyoshi Ihara, Ryō Kase, and Shidō Nakamura

Directed by: Clint Eastwood