"Letters from Iwo Jima" is a World War II-themed film made by Americans with Japanese as the protagonist and Americans as supporting roles, and is generally a positive and objective description. how about it? Just for that, it's worth four stars!
Because it is an anti-war movie, although the war scenes are also spectacular and tragic, but the space is not very large. You must know that it was a major event in World War II with more than 50,000 casualties (21,000 Japanese soldiers were killed, 21,000 were missing, and 1,000 were captured; nearly 20,000 American troops were wounded and 6,990 died)! Here, the battle scene mainly serves as a foil. In the film, a large number of pre-war preparations, correspondence between family letters, memories of peaceful life, and dialogues between survivors who directly attacked their souls during the battle, etc., each of which is full of pyrotechnic and humane details, all inadvertently portray the hysterical and dehumanizing nature of Japanese militarism. At the same time, it also reflects the huge harm caused by the war to civilians from one side. Listening to thunder in a silent place is the biggest character trait of this film. For example, not long after the film started, Lieutenant General Rigiri came to Iwo Jima for the first time and was full of optimism. After seeing his old friend and Olympic equestrian champion, Lieutenant Colonel Nishitake Ichizuki knew that the combined fleet had been wiped out. It's a dead end. In such a desperate state of mind, Lieutenant General Ribayashi could only calmly say with a turbulent inner voice: "The Imperial Headquarters not only deceives the people, but also deceives us!" In such a simple little clip, how rich and rich it is. Profound artistic language? I won't say much, you taste, you taste carefully.
After all, it is the Americans who are filming the Japanese, and the cross-cultural narrative will inevitably feel a little bit of an itch, but the overall feeling, attitude and perspective narrative is still objective, neutral and fair. Even, the movie also criticized the US military's killing of prisoners. In any case, this spirit of criticism and self-criticism is worthy of recognition.
The filming at the end of the film is meaningful, like a stroke of genius. At the end of the Iwo Jima defense battle, more than 20,000 Japanese troops were left with a hundred and ten people retreating in the tunnel. Just when Lieutenant General Ritsubayashi was entangled in whether all the jade pieces were sacrificed to the country or to save the lives of some soldiers as much as possible, the headquarters sent a song dedicated to him by Lieutenant General's hometown Nagano Children's Corps through the combat command radio station: "As long as Iwo Jima stands firm, the people will not be shaken. Feel safe, and the Holy Land of the Empire will always be peaceful and consolidated. Defend this proud island, Iwo Jima." The hometown that can't be returned is not only a good memory, but has become a life-threatening charm that can't be refused. As a result, the lieutenant general had no choice but to lead the remnants of the Jedi to use their flesh and blood to rush to the iron wall of the U.S. military with bullets. He only used the burning of documents as an excuse to leave behind the unknown person who he had saved twice and promised to save him for the third time—— Xixiang.
War always kills people. This is a cruel fact that no one can avoid. But what The Letter from Iwo Jima wants to tell people is that the real cruelty of war is not the dead, nor your enemies wanting you to die, but the unquestionable desire of your countrymen to want you to die. This is called horrific!
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