The Second World War rages. Enemy bombers pummel a group of soldiers the audience has come to understand and love. A dramatic orchestral score attempts to convey the drama, the horror and the inevitable outcome of the bloodbath. Soldiers' faces show a mix of fear and dutiful resolve as they wait, entrenched along the beach. The enemy arrives. Machine guns open fire; many of the attackers are killed.
Scenes like this are familiar for anyone who has ever watched the climax of a World War II movie.
What sets Clint Eastwood's "Letters from Iwo Jima" apart from other American-made World War II films is not the action but the perspective. The setting is Iwo Jima and the vicious attackers are Americans. Though it has earned Eastwood a lot of attention, this melodramatic jaunt through the muddied waters of political correctness fails to reach the standards set by "Saving Private Ryan" and its ilk.
"Letters" features the stories of several Japanese soldiers tasked with the defense of Iwo Jima Island against hopeless odds. Their backgrounds are partially revealed through letters to their families back in Japan, who are represented mostly through voice overs and flashbacks. Kazunari Ninomiya plays Saigo, a former baker who must face the harsh demands of his superiors in a war he never wanted to participate in. Ryo Kase portrays stoic Shimizu, a disillusioned cadet who was kicked out of an elite military academy and unfairly placed in the infantry ranks.
Both men deliver solid performances, but they are not strong enough to break through the mundane dialogue given to them by first-time screenwriter Iris Yamashita. While it tries (and sometimes manages) to make these simple foot soldiers endearing, Yamashita's script is often hollow and sometimes outright corny. Saigo's apathy and Shimizu's stoicism come across clearly, but these characteristics fail to provide deeper illumination onto the forces driving these potentially profound characters.
Ken Watanabe offers the best performance of the film by far as Tadamichi Kuribayashi, a resolved general sent to command the defense of Iwo Jima. Through several flashback scenes, we learn that he spent time in the United States before the war, a fact that presents an intriguing moral conflict between his military training and empathy for the enemy. "Letters" delves into this dichotomy on occasion.
Just as often, though, it forgoes deeper character analysis to portray the general's more overt personality: a brave, unyielding, skillful and charismatic commander who likes to rail off dramatic lines in rapid-fire Japanese with little provocation. Sound familiar? It's a fairly direct rehash of Watanabe's portrayal of General Katsumoto in "The Last Samurai" -- the only difference between the two characters is the century in which they fight.
Despite its problems, "Letters" manages to impress visually. The film features several bursts of absolutely brilliant cinematography that -- if made to extend for most of the movie -- would have the potential to revolutionize WWII moviemaking. Superb sound editing combines with these visually thrilling moments to produce a gritty yet majestic experience unlike that of most similar films. Unfortunately, Eastwood's team musters such inspiration during only a few select scenes, and the audience is left wanting more.
"Letters from Iwo Jima" is not a bad film. Yet one has to question all the attention it has netted Eastwood -- because it is not a great film. The progressive Japanese perspective and Watanabe's solid performance save it from failure, but sporadic cinematographic quality and dull dialogue confine Eastwood's latest work to mediocrity.
