Letters From Iwo Jima

Letters from Iwo Jima, Clint Eastwood's attempt to think his way into the Japanese perspective of the pacific war, after exploring the American perspective in Flags of our Fathers, is remarkably sensitive and understated. Interestingly there is a similar framing device here to the South Korean war film Brotherhood, in which a team of forensic archaeologists are uncovering personal remnants of the war, in this case a bag of undelivered letters, that triggers a flashback. In both cases this metaphor of the excavation of the past fits well with the film's attempt to revise history on a more human level. This is a film that is deeply humanist, not only showing the horrors of war, though avoiding the majority of the genre's cliches, but showing attempts by individuals to bypass ideology and reach out to one another across divides. Such as the genuinely moving scene in which baron Nishi, who had once lived in America and taken part in the olympics, talks to a wounded American soldier, telling him that he has had Douglas Fairbanks as a house guest in Tokyo.

The film is marked by excellent performances all round and strong characterisation. Central is Ken Watanabe's nuanced perfomance as General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, the officer sent to administer the godforsaken island, which is little more than a rock in the ocean, yet is deemed vitally important by the government because it is part of the sacred land of Japan. However, he finds himself not only facing the Americans but the opposition of his own conservative officers, who see his conscientious leadership as a sign of weakness. When the bombs are finally let loose on the island, it is a relentless pounding. As the troops hide in caves dug in the island's hills, the camera backs up, distancing the viewer from the carnage whilst taking in the full panorama of destruction. The red blossoms of flame seem all the more chillingly striking given the prevalence of steely blues and greys of the film's beautifully subtle palette. The cinematography is wholly appropriate in expressing the utter despair of the situation.

This is an impressive collaboration that completely avoids the orientalising aspects that plagued Memoirs of a Geisha, in which the director showed a great deal of cultural insensitivity to both sides by casting Chinese superstars as Japanese Geishas. It's nearest counterpart is perhaps the films of Ang Lee, such as Ice Storm and Brokeback Mountain; in which an Asian director has been able to deal with distinctly American genres and issues in a peculiarly insightful way in spite (or perhaps because) of his outsider perspective. Its interesting that it was Letters from Iwo Jima, not the more bombastic Flags of our Fathers, that competed in the Oscars best picture and director categories; it is a shame that in both cases such a sensitive cross cultural work lost out to Scorcese's inferior The Departed, a film that merely cribs the seminal Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs. One can only assume that the jury felt sorry for Scorcese for loosing out against Eastwood on two previous occasions. Ultimately its proof of how little faith can be put into the impartiality and objectivity of this award ceremony. As always, we all know who should have won...