"Letters from Iowa Jima"

 

"Letters from Iowa Jima"

In the first U.S. film to dramatize World War II solely from an enemy perspective, Clint Eastwood, a Hollywood evergreen, recreated with humanistic focus the bloody battle that took place on the Pacific island of Iwo Jima in 1945.

Torn between loyalty to their divine emperor, which demanded death before the dishonor of surrender, and yearning for their loved ones back home, the Japanese garrison on the god-forsaken island found themselves preparing for what would amount to no more than a token defense before the overwhelmingly stronger U.S. invasion troops.

Shot entirely in Japanese, the movie masterfully depicts the limbo Japanese soldiers experienced while trapped under the tropical sun. As the creaking veneer of glory is shattered not by bombardment from sea but grenade-induced suicide in a nondescript cave, the tragedy of war poignantly hits home as the sword of blinding fervor falls not on the enemy but those given little choice but to wield it.

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