Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)

Time and again, Clint Eastwood's films have returned to the subject of killing. They try to get at the forces that enable someone to take another man's life, and in the best of his films like Unforgiven and Mystic River, he addresses the multiple ramifications of that action. With a superb script by first-time screenwriter Iris Yamashita, Letters from Iwo Jima allows Eastwood to analyze killing and death in so many different contexts, the audience is left with nothing less than a catalogue of the emotional and physical costs of war. Of the movie's many accomplishments, its capacity to utilize and subvert the clichés of combat films might be the most noteworthy. In Letters from Iwo Jima, the Japanese soldiers have the same dreams, desires, and attitudes as every American GI from every war movie ever made. For example, early in the film a young soldier mocks his orders to dig a seemingly pointless hole, and the audience obeys its war-movie programming to sympathize with that rebellious spirit even though the character is Japanese. Anybody familiar with the genre expects the hole-digging soldier to learn the importance of following orders, and the soldier does learn his lesson, but in ways that force him to question most everything he has been taught about his people. Eastwood subverts the clichés in order to allow the audience to sympathize with the Japanese as a whole, and he allows the actors the breathing room to create individual human beings that we care about specifically. Ken Watanabe, as General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, holds the center of the film with a gravity, intelligence, humanity, and reverence that is nearly operatic in the context of the tragedy he oversees, while never once seeming larger than life. Watanabe is remarkable in every moment his character spends onscreen, always credible as an inspiring leader of men, an educated tactician, a loyal soldier, and a simple man who wishes life were different than it is. This performance embodies the spirit of Eastwood's film: a spirit that recognizes the human cost of combat, as well as the limits and necessities of living by a code of honor. Letters from Iwo Jima is the culmination of Eastwood's already-formidable directorial career, offering a fully formed statement on the motifs that have dominated his movies, and a work that will stand as one of the quintessential combat films of all time. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide