Letters From Iwo Jima

Caught this show yesterday with the Wife since I was goddamn determined to catch it as I am really into WWII history. Was telling the Wife if I ever had the chance to further my studies into a subject matter I want, it would have to be war history, with me majoring in WWII history.

Anyhow, if you have ever watch Studio Ghibli's Graveyard of the Fireflies, you would have been as moved by the poignancies that were portrayed in Letters. I teared a little and my heart wnet out to the Japanese soldiers on the island. Not because I support the Jap cause in the war but because they knew they were about to die, with Death staring at them everyday. If it wasn't the Americans at the end of the day, it was an early demise courtesy of dysentry. Letters fully goes to show the abject brutalness of war and the uncaring face it has whether it be to expectant fathers, caring husbands or sons who were never meant to be soldiers.

It moved me in ways that I have not felt in other WWII movies like Saving Private Ryan or Pearl Harbor as I thought they focussed too much on the glitzy and glamorous sides of the victors but never the internal turmoil and struggles of the losers. Letter avoided that and a little more.

The closest parallel for the movie would be Band of Brothers or if you are into print, Journey's End. Like Letters, they tell of normal men torn from their lives to fight a war they never knew much or even cared much about. Letters explores what it means to live and die with dignity and honor when the viewers are frequently given juxtaposes of the old Bushido code the Japanese soldiers adhere to to Ken Watanabe's character's stance on the intelligent and practical withdrawal in the face of defeat.

It also begs the answer to the question of what it means to be a soldier in the face of certain death. Do we charge down the rocky slopes and be gunned down like the rest or find a way to live and fight another day.

Clint has done it. This show triumphs over Flags of Our Fathers because it's that much deeper and more meaningful. The stoicness and desperation of the doomed soldiers leave such an indelible mark on me that it will really be hard to shake away.

This is one DVD I will get when it comes out.