Letters from Iwo Jima
15, 141 mins

Sacks of letters written by Japanese soldiers sent to defend Iwo Jima were found decades later buried in the same caves in which they died. Clint Eastwood uses this bittersweet discovery to assemble a truly daring experiment. Flags of Our Fathers — released last December — is a shattering account of the fight for this godforsaken island as experienced by American soldiers in 1945. Letters from Iwo Jima relives exactly the same events through the eyes of the beleaguered Japanese.

The novelty of a subtitled war movie may yet win Eastwood the Oscar for Best Picture, but the victory would be hollow. At best it would be an ageing Academy’s vote of confidence in a 76-year-old veteran’s nerve. Letters is an inspired idea, but a weak film. It’s dressed to perfection. But apart from Ken Watanabe’s resourceful Kuribayashi — the genial general who soon realises that there’s no point waiting for the Japanese cavalry to arrive because there isn’t one — the officers are so rigid that they are in danger of snapping in two.

BACKGROUND

• Flags of our Fathers

• Letter from Iwo Jima

• The unheroic face of war

• Eastwood war film 'waves flag of bleeding hearts'

• Clint Eastwood

Ken is Clint's main man

Letters from Iwo Jima looks like becoming the main attraction

Related Internet Links

• 2007 London Film Festival coverage

• Times Online Film Trailers

This chronic faith in duty erases subtle shades. Letters is rigorously authentic about the airtight horrors of the Japanese caves and bunkers. But it has none of the queasy ironies and tragic compromises that torment the heroes in Flags . Humble foot soldiers who grumble about dysentery are flogged or decapitated. When a glorious Japanese triumph looks unlikely, the suicidal maniacs take over the film, detonating grenade caps on their helmets.

Despite the dramatic disparity between Eastwood’s chalk-and-cheese films, it’s hardly a surprise when they arrive at the same angry conclusions. They weep for victims on both sides. They expose the evils of propaganda. And war is condemned as a shocking absurdity.

The moral is hardly original. The scale certainly is. Only a director of Eastwood’s standing could possibly terrify enough producers into financing this decidedly foreign, but impressively chunky, white elephant.

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