With the nomination of Letters from Iwo Jima today for Best Picture by the Motion Picture Academy, director Clint Eastwood has redeemed himself from his earlier disaster on Iwo Jima called Flags of Our Fathers. The latter was little more than an antiwar diatribe, but the second version, told from the Japanese perspective, achieves a balance lacking in Flags.
What’s more, Letters from Iwo Jima boasts three magnificent acting performances. Ken Watanabe is superb as General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, as is Tsuyoshi Ihara as Baron Nishi, Olympic equestrian and now soldier who volunteers for Iwo Jima to fight and die with Kuribayashi. However, it is Japanese rock star Kazumori Ninomiya who steals the screen as the young soldier Saigo. He fashions his role into such an endearing character that it puts a whole new perspective on the face of war.
It wasn’t until today, actually, when I reread some reviews of Letters that I realized that Eastwood took Flags of Our Fathers over from Steven Spielberg. That certainly explains the left-leaning, antiwar message of the first Iwo Jima film. It turns out that Eastwood developed Letters on his own. The results clearly show who’s the greater filmmaker.
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