Letters from Iwo Jima

[Penelope]

people led to expect great-great-ness could come away disappointed.

Yep.

[Mister Tee]

I saw this over the weekend and meant to write about it, but a cold knocked out for a few days (that's also the reason I didn't provide an alphabetical guide to the nominations, for those who missed it).

As you may know, I missed Flags, so I have no sense of this as companion piece...but it's a lovely piece of filmmaking on its own. The subject is truly revolutionary (at least in American film terms): as BJ says, there's no illusion from the start that this is a struggle with an unknown outcome; Kuribayashi knows as soon as he hears about the Marianas outcome that he faces certain, overwhelming defeat. Imagine a sports movie where the team we focus on not only loses the World Series, it loses in four lopsided games, and we watch every inning; that's what this film is. And what the film's two hours deal with is how men of honor (a phrase that would never have been applied to the Japanese during the conflict) face such a defeat.

Eastwood and his screenwriters make this palatable -- in fact greatly moving, like an elegy -- by constructing a mosaic from very small moments. The characters are very simply limned -- even celebrities like Nishi and Kuribayashi are presented as ordinary men at heart -- and, though a few of the anecdotes (the aforementioned dog, the GI treatment of the surrenderer) reek of Haggis and his infernal balance, on the whole the use of mundane story material makes the case for shared humanity better than elaborate plotting. (In fact, with this, Million Dollar Baby and Bridges of Madison County, you could make a case Eastwood's greatest gift is to find the poetic in the truly ordinary)

The film is also beautifully shot. I'm sure there's some stupid, crony-related reason why Stern is not a cinematography nominee for such a breathtaking-looking effort. The shot where Saigo first sees the arriving American fleet -- bigger by scores than anything he imagined -- is one of the great single moments of the year.

You probably don't want to oversell the film. Its modesty is one of its strongest qualities, and people led to expect great-great-ness could come away disappointed. But it's yet another work of quality from a man who's having one of the best third acts in American cinema history.

[The Original BJ]

I completely agree with you, dws. That person is a moron. I think one of the most interesting aspects of Letters is how it replays so many moments from Flags from the opposite perspective. We are witnessing a reversal of the images of war we have seen in earlier films, literally Flags of Our Fathers, but by extension, most of war cinema as a whole. (Note: I don't think this is necessarily a complex or subtle point, but someone seems to have missed it entirely, so...)

I'm with Sabin in that I didn't much care for Flags of Our Fathers, but think Letters From Iwo Jima is one of the best pictures of the year. (And I also wonder if I need to revisit the former...) That's not to say it doesn't have its small missteps -- the sequence with the dog strikes me as a simplistic way to define a character, the flashback to America features a grossly-overdrawn woman straight out of Paul Haggis Land -- but on the whole, I found it a very powerful piece of filmmaking. The opening shots alone suggest an elegy: we know the Japanese soldiers are doomed to lose Iwo Jima, and they know it too. I found the characters' acceptance of their fate (or lack thereof) and subsequent march toward tragedy incredibly moving, highlighted by the film's hauntingly faded photography and beautiful, spare scoring.

I'd really like to see this film do very well on Oscar nod morning, and, as it's perfectly accessible, will take the Academy to task big time if it's bumped from major nominations by that sunshine thing.

[dws1982]

Saw this earlier today. And then came home and read this:

Also of small disappointment is Eastwood’s disinterest in lacing “Flags” and “Iwo Jima” together in small, fringe ways. The director seems adamant that the two pictures stay separate. Eastwood misses out on a chance to bring about a larger canvas of conflict by separating these conjoined twins, and, as affecting as “Iwo Jima” is, it doesn’t always throw the knockout punch the renowned director is intending.

What an idiot. One of the opening shots of Letters is the final shot of Flags. The final shot of Letters (from the beach looking towards Mt. Suribachi) is from the opposite perspective of the final shot of Flags (looking down Suribachi towards the beach). One of the early battle scenes in Flags shows American soldiers flaming a Japanese machine gun nest, then going around and shooting the guys who were inside it before they burn to death. In Letters we see the exact same action, only the camera is placed inside the machine gun nest, with the flamethrower shooting fire at us. Lots of other examples show up, especially in the battle scenes. (We see the ships approaching Iwo from the opposite angle here than we did in Flags.)

They seem too clear and too frequent to be a coincidence. If Eastwood had wanted there to be no connection between the two films, he probably would've thrown out those visual references altogether, but they're there, and they're pretty clear if you watch close enough.

I think I agree with Kent Jones that together Letters and Flags form a great tragic epic. More to come later--I don't have time to go into any more detail right now.

[dws1982]

Check the Flags thread, Sabin. I posed some more thoughts to go with what I'd posted before. Don't know how coherent the post is though, as I haven't read back over it.

[flipp525]

Kazunari Nimomiya's been on my "completely WTF/out-of-nowhere nomination" shortlist for Best Supporting Actor for awhile now. I'd really love to see his performance recognized this year now that my personal preference for best of the year (Jackie Earle Haley) seems to have a great shot at receiving a nod.



Edited By flipp525 on 1168801323

[Sabin]

Which brings us to 'Letters from Iwo Jima' which unlike 'Flags of Our Fathers' doesn't blugeon us with a half-interesting moral quandry for two and half hours but rather brings us into several smaller ones that provide something in a screenplay I like to call "conflict". 'Flags' is a relatively simple-minded "War Movie" and I still don't get the love for it (Daniel: HINT!!!) 'Letters' is miles above it, just miles. It's helped by a few basis factors, the first being a far more interesting story to tell. 'Flags' makes for a decent term paper but as a film it's intolerable, although it's interesting to note that as mentioned in Jonathan Rosenbaum's review, Japanese critics are far more into 'Flags' than 'Letters' because it tells a story they don't know.

As I mentioned before, 'Letters from Iwo Jima' has a degree of conflict totally missing from 'Flags' and there are times in this film where I had no idea what the hell was going to happen. A.O Scott mentions that there are scenes in 'Letters From Iwo Jima' that are unlike any other in war movies and this is true; not simple because this is Clint Eastwood making a faithfully Japanese film (which I am told it is, Lord knows it feels to me like it), but because the moments are genuinely ripe with peril, haunting, tense and hell, and full of little delicious ironies. I will also say that for all my 'Flags' bashing, 'Letters' serves to deepen that film as a companion piece and I may have to view both of them together. Without being coy, I'll say outright that 'Letters' one of the best movies of the year.

It's not however THE great movie of the year as it's been positioned because too often it feels like "Up with Japanese People: The War Movie", and I don't know if I can really blame Paul Haggis for his contributions but Lord knows the scenes would be easy to pinpoint: ie Nishi and a young soldier named Sam's chat in which the young American's letter from Ma is taken and Japanese soldiers begin to realize that we're all the same inside. Bleh. 'Letters' says that by simply existing and ye gods, the lengths that the film goes to to depict the horrific nature of this war, letters from American mothers are retread. I enjoy the theme of men unified by their written longings to return home but scenes like that ring entirely false.

The characterizations in 'Letters' are phenomenal and many of them still resonate with me strongly. Watanabe's Kuribayashi is a fascinatinig creation, a man grappling with communication and obedience and ultimately left asunder. Yet the face that lingers with me more than most this year is Kazunari Nimomiya's Saigo, a boy thrown into battle who wants to go home and realizes sooner than most that this will never happen. Saigo looks like a boy and he guides this movie with his ashen cynicism, ultimately becoming its moral compass. His journey is an amazing one and Nimomiya never misses a beat. I'm inclined to call his one of the year's best leading performances, and Lord knows in a less crowded year with ample time for theatrical crawl, I think he could be nominated for a supporting spot with Watanabe as lead.

Warner Bros., The Studio of the Year. Taking the chances they have no idea what to do with.

[Sonic Youth]

Letters From Iwo Jima

Brent Simon in Los Angeles
Screendaily

Dir: Clint Eastwood. US. 2006. 141mins.

Clint Eastwood’s twilight career renaissance continues and only further deepens with Letters From Iwo Jima, his second film in two months about the best known Pacific battle during World War Two. Shot back-to-back with its companion piece Flags Of Our Fathers, it focuses more explicitly on the conflict and its human toll, telling events leading up to the central siege from the Japanese perspective. Whereas its predecessor was very much about the machinations of government image-making and the media’s complicity in wartime, this is more straightforwardly ruminative and plaintive.

Comparisons to Flags Of Our Fathers are the natural benchmark, both artistically and in terms of box-office appeal. While Flags is ostensibly the more naturally alluring picture, it has thus far stalled at under $35m domestically. Told from a foreign perspective, and with Japanese dialogue throughout, Letters From Iwo Jima lacks a narrative bent that suggests much better Stateside returns (it opens there on Dec 20), making it a tough sell for mainstream audiences. Early critical plaudits — the film has been named best picture by both the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and National Board of Review — will help it with upscale arthouse patrons; parlaying that elite audience into significant box office, however, will seem an uphill climb.

Overseas may well see Letters From Iwo Jima give a better account of itself, especially in Japan, where it opened on Dec 9.

Though the films do not fit together seamlessly - nor are they necessarily meant to – they do stand next to one another in interesting fashion. But it is this second half of Eastwood’s thematic double bill that is the more striking and memorable work and should push each project on to almost certain Oscar and Golden Globe nods. Certainly the relative novelty and pluck of the endeavor should be enough to garner Eastwood, a beloved figure amongst AMPAS voters, strong consideration for yet another Best Director Oscar nod. Letters’ lack of commercial traction, however, will dent its chances at some top-shelf prizes, moreso after last season’s Crash Oscar victory, which came amid the lowest-grossing, least populist Best Picture nominees in recent years....



....The first hour-plus of the film details in, if not languid, then certainly relaxed rhythms, the several weeks leading up to the battle, and it’s here that most of the interesting characterisation can be found.

But when conflict comes the situation changes, as the massive arrival of American forces provokes Japanese discord within the ranks, erupting in ritualistic suicide and mutinous disobedience.

Several of the combat scenes within Letters fit neatly into the chronology of Flags, but the lack of crossover cameos by significant Flags cast members or even many US soldiers — indeed, the films are almost wholly discrete experiences — render these sequences somewhat hazy. Furthermore, Eastwood doesn’t do a particularly keen job of establishing the spatial relationships necessary to make full, working sense of Kuribayashi’s underground network.

There are some other intriguing parallels between the two movies, though, particularly with regards to the disparity between actuality and the public face that governments put on matters. Letters, though, doesn’t plumb any representation of a spin machine; Kuribayashi merely receives dispassionate word via courier of his abandonment by various superiors, and the fact that his forces will be bereft of air defence.

Whereas Flags sometimes struggled in juggling of different timelines, Eastwood’s characteristically unembellished style is better naturally suited to Letters’ story, which is more traditionally linear and character-driven.

Kazunari Ninomiya makes a nice impression as Saigo; although his arc isn’t wildly cathartic, we see his cynical nature transform movingly into resolve. As in The Last Samurai, Ken Watanabe projects a preternatural calm and confidence, while also letting us see Kuribayashi’s tender side. He and Tsuyoshi Ihara, who plays erstwhile equestrian Nishi, provide the film with its moral gravity.

Technical category awards nominations seem certain, with longtime Eastwood collaborator and cinematographer Tom Stern’s washed-out work delivering an apocalyptic vision so desolate it makes one almost taste the sand.

[dws1982]

Clint Eastwood's Iwo Jima film resonates in Japan

TOKYO (Reuters) - Hiromasa Murakami went to see Clint Eastwood's "Letters from Iwo Jima" to find out if an American could tell the Japanese side of a battle that became a symbol of U.S. patriotism, but for Japan was a bitter memory of defeat.

After viewing the film on Saturday when it opened it Tokyo, Murakami thinks Eastwood got it right.

"It was marvelous," the 50-year-old carpenter said as he emerged from the theater. "How should I express it? It was the same for both sides, for them and us. Everyone was a victim."

Named best film of 2006 by the National Board of Review last Wednesday, "Letters from Iwo Jima" is the second of two Eastwood films about the 1945 battle, engraved in U.S. memory by a photo of six servicemen raising the flag on the island's Mount Suribachi.

The first, "Flags of Our Fathers," is the tale of three of the Americans who raised the flag and later became propaganda tools in a campaign to sell U.S. war bonds.

Starring Ken Watanabe as Lieutenant-General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, commander of the Japanese forces in the epic World War Two battle, "Letters" focuses on the Japanese defenders.

Central to the film are Kuribayashi, who had served as a military attache in the United States and himself had little hope of victory, and Saigo, a young baker who is drafted and forced to leave his pregnant wife but vows to return home alive.

The title refers to letters the two men, both loving husbands and fathers, write to their families as they prepare for battle.

The shared humanity of those who fought on both sides was one message Eastwood wanted to convey.

"I think it's important that everybody remember that people gave their lives to protect their country," he told a news conference in Tokyo last month.

For many Japanese, the battle that killed 6,800 U.S. Marines and 21,000 Japanese has long been a tragedy best forgotten. "Iwo Jima was a defeat. It was miserable and no Japanese movie company wanted to try to show it," said Eichi Tsukada, a 71-year-old retiree whose father died in World War Two.

Six decades after its defeat, Japan is still trying to come to grips with the Pacific War and who was to blame.

"As a person in the Japanese movie industry, I have the slightly embarrassing sensation that we should have turned our attention to the Battle of Iwo Jima and filmed something on the theme earlier," Watanabe said in an interview published in the Daily Yomiuri newspaper on Saturday.

The first scrap of Japan's native soil invaded in the war, Iwo Jima -- "Sulphur Island" -- was coveted by the Americans as a base for fighters escorting B-29 bombers headed for the mainland.

Kuribayashi honeycombed the island with tunnels from which defenders had to be dislodged by demolition charges, grenades and flamethrowers to try to delay an invasion of the mainland.

Few young Japanese these days know much about the battle for the tiny, tear-shaped island 700 miles south of Tokyo. But after watching the film on Saturday, 17-year-old high school student Satoshi Koyama said he had learned something.

"American and Japanese soldiers were fighting with the same emotion. Both wanted to return to their homelands," he said.

[Franz Ferdinand]

I thought The Thin Red Line managed to portray the crushing boredom of war rather well. It seemed endlessly interminable when I saw it in the theaters, and I've yet to give it another chance.

[The Original BJ]

Mainly the back-home scenes. I thought the film had about one idea -- the real heroes died in the war -- and kept replaying that ad nauseum. It's the Haggis touch. Remember his favorite Brecht quote about the hammer?!

[dws1982]

I loved Flags of Our Fathers after I saw it the third time, so I can't wait for this.

I thought the greatest flaw in Flags was that the same point was made over and over and over again.

Are you talking about the back home scenes, or the battle scenes? Because the back home scenes I'll grant emphasize some of the same things over and over--although I think Eastwood scenes. But I don't see how that could be said about the battle scenes. Well, they did shoot back and forth a lot--that was repetitive. But other than that, there were several elements that made Flags unique in recent war movies.

[The Original BJ]

The film is slow. Soldiers reflect on their fate perhaps too many times. Points are made and then made again. But this may be part of Eastwood's strategy: War is slow and repetitive and can drive people to real insanity. Filmmakers usually ignore this in war movies. "Flags" and now "Letters" represent a different kind of war movie.

Despite finding Flags only mediocre, I was really looking forward to Iwo Jima . . . but this worries me. I thought the greatest flaw in Flags was that the same point was made over and over and over again. While it may convey the theme that war is slow and repetitive, to me it wasn't an effective dramatic choice in Flags, IMO, and now I have my apprehensions about Iwo Jima.

[Sonic Youth]

Letters From Iwo Jima

By Kirk Honeycutt
Hollywood Reporter



In making "Flags of Our Fathers," released two months ago, Clint Eastwood said he was bothered that he was only telling half of the story of the vicious World War II battle for a tiny volcanic island in the Pacific in 1945. So he made another film. "Letters From Iwo Jima," shot with Japanese actors in their language, tells the story of the men who defended the island with their deaths.

Eastwood's accomplishment with these two films, shot back to back yet with much different tone and substance, cannot be overstated. Eastwood's previous pictures, "Mystic River" and "Million Dollar Baby," seemed like works by a director seeking simplicity of story in exchange for depth of emotions and character. In keeping things simple -- especially so in the latter film -- Eastwood dug deep into his underling themes, much as John Ford did late in his career with the minimalist Western "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance."

Now Eastwood turns on a dime and tackles not just his first war movie but two war movies of considerable scope and complexity. If he doesn't nail everything perfectly, he nevertheless has created a vivid memorial to the courage on both sides of this battle and created an awareness in the public consciousness at a most opportune moment about how war feels to those lost in its fog.

While "Flags" is the broader, more entertaining film, if you will, "Letters" is, for want of a better expression, more art house. It might perform more strongly at the boxoffice in Japan and Europe than in the domestic market where subtitles cut attendance. Perhaps it will find its American audience over time.


"Letters," which concerns an utterly futile conflict in which Japanese forces are overwhelmed by the sheer number of enemy troops, is necessarily fatalistic and melancholy. No one expects to survive. Indeed more than 20,000 Japanese troops perished. Yet a battle that was supposed to last five days took nearly 40. The reason for this was Lt. Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe).

World War II offers no figure more fascinating, complex or tragic than this man. Before the war, Kuribayashi traveled and studied in America and opposed the war. Yet when asked to defend the island that was the last stepping stone before the Imperial homeland, he takes advantage of his knowledge and insights into U.S. military strategy to completely retool the island's defense.

Arriving several months before the invasion, he insists on a tour by foot, much to the displeasure of his tired officers. Everything he sees is wrong. He orders construction of miles of tunnels through the black volcanic rock that connect with 5,000 caves and pillboxes from which his much smaller forces can ambush enemy troops.

One of the movie's great lines comes when he commands that no one can die before he has killed 10 enemy soldiers. Thus, his horrifying strategy is not for victory but a defeat that will cost the enemy as many casualties as possible.

The screenplay by Japanese-American writer Iris Yamashita, from a story she wrote with executive producer Paul Haggis, derives in part from a book of letters by Kuribayashi to his wife, daughter and son, published in Japan, as well as hundreds of letters from young conscriptees found buried on the island decades later. These letters, often read aloud, lead to flashbacks, a device that is sometimes awkward.

Eastwood deliberately casts only a few actors and extras so as to emphasize the smallness of the Japanese forces. Saigo (Kazunari Ninomiya, who is just terrific) is a baker whose only desire is to return to Japan to see a daughter born since his departure. Baron Nishi (Tsuyoshi Ihara) is a well-known equestrian champion who competed in the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles. His presence leads to a surreal scene in which the baron chats with a dying American soldier about his experiences in Los Angeles and friendships with Hollywood personalities.

The presence of former military policeman Shimizu (Ryo Kase) provokes suspicion among the troops over his true role. But his story unfolds too late in the film, squandering any impact it might have. Lt. Ito (Shidou Nakamura) represents the death culture in the Japanese military, men who prefer suicide to the dishonor of surrender or even retreat. It's fascinating to hear him call his general "a weak American sympathizer."

Like "Flags," this movie is shot by Tom Stern virtually in black and white. The only color comes in fireballs and the flashbacks. The late designer Henry Bumstead and James J. Murakami make the caves, tunnels and beaches a harsh, uninviting place, "a hole," as Saigo writes to his wife, "in which to fight and die."

This film is one of the least glamorized war movies ever with none of the cinematic flash of, say, "Saving Private Ryan" or "We Were Soldiers." Here war is seen as a dull, sickening, grinding machine has chews up minds and bodies.

The film is slow. Soldiers reflect on their fate perhaps too many times. Points are made and then made again. But this may be part of Eastwood's strategy: War is slow and repetitive and can drive people to real insanity. Filmmakers usually ignore this in war movies. "Flags" and now "Letters" represent a different kind of war movie.

[Sonic Youth]

Here we go...

Letters From Iwo Jima
By TODD MCCARTHY
Variety

"Letters From Iwo Jima" represents something rare in the history of war movies -- a case of a filmmaker from one country sympathetically telling a combat story from the perspective of a former enemy. The second installment in Clint Eastwood's ambitious and enterprising account of one of the Pacific war's most ferocious conflicts, the film is the stylistic twin of "Flags of Our Fathers" but different in feel due to its intimacy, concentrated focus and, inevitably, the nature of its Japanese military characters. Well received at its premiere in Japan, where it opens Dec. 9, this piercing, astutely judged picture faces limited commercial prospects due to its Japanese-language dialogue alone. But after the more respectful than passionate critical response to "Flags," which has fallen short of B.O. expectations, "Letters" may well fire Eastwood's many partisans with renewed vigor, spelling sustained biz on select screens.

"All Quiet on the Western Front" was about Germans in World War I, but from a pacifist p.o.v.; "Tora! Tora! Tora!" included the Japanese angle on Pearl Harbor; the central characters in "The Blue Max" and "Cross of Iron" were Germans. Scattered other examples certainly exist. All the same, there are few moments in Hollywood cinema of any era as oddly unsettling as the one here, in which an American Marine charges toward the protagonists and is so manifestly perceived as the enemy.

That unfortunate young man is bayonetted to death by his Japanese captors. But the film's true intent comes across the second time a Yank is nabbed by the doomed members of the Imperial Army, when the injured grunt movingly establishes an unlikely bond with his aristocratic Japanese interrogator. There were compelling reasons why the war was fought, but the unusual focus of "Letters" is the humanity of the Japanese soldiers who longed for home just like anyone else, knowing they would never leave the tiny strip of land alive.

Naturally, U.S. war films of the era painted the Japanese as the most maniacal and barbaric of fighters, and many veterans and historians, Americans, Chinese and others, insist this was true. Pic might have done well to mention the emperor's endorsement of the "Death Before Surrender" edict of early 1945. But "Letters" makes the case that even the Japanese were divided among themselves.

"There's nothing sacred about this island," says one heretical conscript. "The Americans can have it." The official line was that the invaders were weak-willed and undisciplined, but two of the top Japanese officers depicted here had spent time in the U.S. before the war, liked the country and had friends there. To echo the primary theme of "Flags," nothing is as clear-cut as it seems; the situation is never as black-and-white as any side's propaganda would have it.Considered from the Japanese angle, Iwo Jima resembles the Alamo, a futile if heroic last stand against an enemy force too overwhelming to withstand, although withstand it they did, for much longer than their opponents imagined possible.

Elegantly but with dramatic bite, Eastwood unfolds the story of some of the men who put up the resilient fight, emphasizing the way their personalities were expressed through crisis rather than ideology or stock notions of bravery and heroics. Screenplay by first-timer Iris Yamashita, a Japanese-American who worked out the story with "Flags" scenarist Paul Haggis, maintains an intimate focus within a grand context, and is based on sentiments expressed in long-dead soldiers' letters seen at the outset being dug up on Iwo Jima.

Initial stretch provides an opportunity to paint a more detailed portrait than "Flags" could of the desolation of the 5 mile by 2½-mile strip of black volcanic rock and sand. In the wilting summer before the invasion, the assembled Japanese troops were scraping by with no resources. Rescuing them from torpor and the savage punishments of severe officers is Lt. General Tadamichi Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe), the impressive former chief of the Imperial Guard sent to prepare the island for the anticipated American assault.

Within the limits of a tradition defined by loyalty and obedience, Kuribayashi is his own man. Taking the measure of the inhospitable bit of real estate on extensive walks, he undercuts by-the-book officers, to their fury, and soon has a weary, ineffectual admiral sent home. Whereas the Japanese customarily believed in beachhead defenses, the new general orders the construction of miles of tunnels and caves from which his 20,000 men can most advantageously battle the arriving Americans.

Kuribayashi quickly befriends the dashing Baron Nishi (Tsuyoshi Ihara), an aristocrat with a meager supply of Johnny Walker. The shared scotch serves as a reminder of the America they both know personally; Kuribayashi was there as a student and young officer, Nishi as an equestrian at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics. Their quiet moments to converse are privileged ones, especially in light of what lies ahead.

At the opposite end of the hierarchy are Saigo (Kazunari Ninomiya), a simple baker and mildly impudent everyman who longs only to see his infant daughter, and the sensitive Shimizu (Ryo Kase), whose shortcomings as an MP have earned him this lamentable posting. With rabid exceptions, the Japanese here are dedicated, ready to kill the enemy and resigned to whatever their fates may be, even as they may have mixed minds about fighting and mostly wish they were somewhere else.

Their hideaways secure, the men wait and wait some more. Suffering from centipedes, a steady diet of weed soup and bad water, one soldier quips, "We'll be dead before the Americans get here." And there's nothing but bad news from the outside world, as their navy is wiped out and hoped-for reserves won't be arriving after all. Finally, with the U.S. fleet on its way from Saipan, Kuribayashi levels with his men: They should not expect to survive, but must each endeavor to kill at least 10 of the enemy before dying themselves.

Battle commences an hour in, and the general's tactics immediately prove their worth, as the Americans sustain heavy losses as they swarm the beach. But in a particularly disturbing interlude, in one cave a group of ultra-traditionalists decide to "die with honor."

In due course, Mount Suribachi is taken, and this time Eastwood hauntingly offers the historic flag-raising from the Japanese perspective at the opposite end of the island. With troops separated in different locations, a festering split in the Japanese command bursts, and one particularly fanatical officer, Lt. Ito (Shidou Nakamura), goes his own way in defiance of Kuribayashi. Deterioration of the Japanese position is slow but inevitable.

An artier,more impressionistic approach might have emphasized the unbearable psychological pressure induced by prolonged confinement, deprivation and bombardment. The claustrophobic element is obviously mandatory, but Eastwood allows the film to breathe by moving the action around in space and time, combined with the engaging characters who occupy centerstage.

A man of his time but with a refinement that suggests an earlier era, Kuribayashi is the sort of man any army would want to have in charge. In Watanabe's beautifully nuanced performance, he is smart, cunning and imaginative, always several steps ahead in his thinking and therefore never ruffled. His composure in the face of certain doom is remarkable, his fate an expression of both his love of country and his broader sense of himself as a man of honor and arms.

Ihara is a treat as the bon vivant whose sense of style isn't impaired even by hell on earth, while Kazunari offers a lively, easily accessible commoner whose emotions are simple and direct.

Due partly to the preponderance of dark interiors, "Letters" seems even more like a black-and-white film than did "Flags," the color in Tom Stern's strongly composed lensing drained nearly to the vanishing point. One panoramic shot of the American fleet aside, CGI work seems minimal here, as a bit of location footage from the island itself has been discreetly amplified by stand-in landscapes shot in California, with a little work in Japan to top it off. The superbly varied interiors represent the final work of the late, great production designer Henry Bumstead, along with James J. Murakami. Regular Eastwood editor Joel Cox was here partnered with Gary D. Roach. Spare score this time was composed not by the director, but by son Kyle Eastwood and Michael Stevens.

Possibly the one thing missing from this microcosmic look at an epochal battle is the bigger picture, a sense of the staggering slaughter that took place over a six-week period at a cost of 26,000 lives. "Flags" imparted something of an idea of this, although not in its totality and certainly not for the Japanese, of whom only 216 survived. Taken together, "Flags" and "Letters" represent a genuinely imposing achievement, one that looks at war unflinchingly -- that does not deny its necessity but above all laments the human loss it entails.