Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)

Letters from Iwo Jima: Directed by Clint Eastwood. With Ken Watanabe, Kazunari Ninomiya, Tsuyoshi Ihara, Ryô Kase. The story of the battle of Iwo Jima between the United States and Imperial Japan during World War II, as told from the perspective of the Japanese who fought it.

“At the conclusion of the film a person behind me said, u0026quot;Incredible,u0026quot; twice. Another person followed with, u0026quot;A masterpiece.u0026quot; I would concur. Perhaps it isnu0026#39;t a perfect film but it is a movie with great impact. I find that it is a testament to the skill of Clint Eastwood as a director and Iris Yamashita as screenwriter that some of the scenes that had the greatest impact were of minor things—a letter read out loud, the way someone saluted, a tear, a song…u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThere were no clear cut heroes or villains beyond u0026quot;waru0026quot; itself. Iu0026#39;m reminded of that saying, u0026quot;No one wins a war. One side simply loses more than the other.u0026quot; War diminishes us all. We must learn to turn our backs on such endeavors even if it means that the military/industrial death merchants take a cut in profits or that they truly learn to hammer swords into plow shares.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIf the film were to depict the battle in a manner that was realistically experienced by the soldiers the film would be unbearable to any viewer. One must see the battle and history as a kind of allegorical backdrop to a story about the utter inhumanity and futility of war. As a film it had to illustrate the overall societal insanity of war through a human lens, and it did this in a deeply moving way.”