| Could we ever have expected this? The Iwo Jima memorial (and the picture from which it was crafted) is an icon for the US Marines, heroism, and the US winning WWII. How then could we have expected someone to tell us the Japanese side of this incredible battle. But Clint Eastwood and Steven Spielberg - as a companion to their Flags of Our Fathers, made at the same time – did just that.
Not only do we learn (through letters of survivors and surviving letters) the suffering of the Japanese during that battle, we are drawn to that suffering by the director.
So well done that this ultimate war movie is actually an anti-war statement. It could only have been made some 60 years after that horrific battle.
| Phil says this is an anti-war movie. I say it is war seen from another view. First Clint Eastwood gives us the Aview@ of war from the American soldiers= perspective in Flags of Our Father. Here he has directed a film that tells the story from the side of the Japanese soldiers. It is the story of Iwo Jima as related through a series of letters written home to solders= families. It doesn=t matter that they are the families of Japanese soldiers, only that they were written. Eastwood reminds us that all soldiers have mothers, wives, and children. It is hard, at times, to remember that the Japanese were the enemy in this war.
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Phil - Must See Now!
Carol - Must See Now!