Friday, November 12, 2010

LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA (2006)

Story of sacrifice, struggle, and courage of Japanese soldiers who defended their homeland against invading American forces during Second World War for around forty days. It was destined for them to die for their country in unfavorable situation where there’s no air or navy support and with limited young soldiers and short of ammunition the General had to counter the American air and naval attack on shore of Iwo Jima.

It’s quite surprising that Clint Eastwood made an absolutely Japanese film true to its salt with complete ensemble cast of Japanese actors including impressive Ken Watanabe as General Kuribayashi. The language of the film is throughout Japanese (reading subtitles are inevitable) and while watching film anyone can wonder that it’s film made by Hollywood. I don’t wonder why it won Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language film. The film has fine cinematography by Tom Stern; however some parts of the film are quite stretching especially in subplot of a disillusioned soldier saving his life from war but the film tries to focus on individual personal conflict of soldiers when death is the ultimate reality.
One more feather in the directorial cap of Clint Eastwood.

Ratings-7.5/10

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