Letters From Iwo Jima(2006)- User Reviews

While I find “Letters from Iwo Jima” to be an excellent film which I will highly recommend to others, I do believe that its reviews are highly overrated, primarily because it suffers from being what is essentially an Ameri-centric take on a Japanese situation, pretending to take the Japanese point of view. Take for example, A. O. Scott’s review in the New York Times, “Blurring the Line in the Bleak Sands of Iwo Jima,” in which he declares the movie as “utterly original, even radical in its methods and insights.”

I would disagree. As much as I believe it is well-directed, it is essentially a very (North) American movie, set in a foreign language. As good as the acting is (particularly by Watanabe), it is broader and less subtle than one would find in the best Japanese films, which often operate under the assumption of unspoken but deeply felt emotion. (Examples might be the postwar films in Shochiku’s catalogue, such as Ozu, but would also encompass more recent films, e.g. the less violent aspects of Kitano’s “Hanabi”). In a Japanese film, one would not find Saigo’s emotions so explicitly shown--lengthy pan et al-- in discovering the body of a dead colleague. Hence, I would disagree with Scott’s statement that “Mr. Eastwood also shows an attention to details of speech and gesture that can only be described as delicate.” That’s delicate in the American sense—not in the Japanese sense. The values in operation here, aesthetic and otherwise, are American.

I also find parts of this film to be historically inaccurate. Scenes of Japanese communities around Yokohama and greater Tokyo are shown in pristine, ryokan-like condition. These areas were heavily air-raided in the mid-1940s; certainly by 1944-1945, squalor would have been more realistic. In particular, it is extremely unlikely that any city dweller would have given himself the luxury of keeping a pet dog (let alone a horse). City dwellers were literally starving by 1945, as food had been redirected to the armed forces; due to the lack of protein sources, any sane city dwellers would have already eaten their pets by 1943, and certainly there would not have been the resources to keep such a plump and well-groomed animal. Similarly, I find it unlikely that Japanese officers would have been sharing sneaked-in Johnny Walkers; as American products were banned during the bar, this act would have been equivalent to an American general stationed in Iraq sharing a Cuban cigar with another officer. Hence, Scott’s statement “There is nothing gratuitous in this film, nothing fancy or false” shows his lack of understanding of the socio-historical context on which this film is based.

The question that comes to my mind is, “Who really wrote the screenplay for this film?” Paul Haggis and Iris Yamamoto claim the credits, but neither of them are native Japanese speakers. Yamamoto has a Japanese last name, but she was born and raised in the United States and would hence miss much of the subtleties of the Japanese language. I find it very dubious that a young, low-ranked person such as Saigo would have been using as rough a language as he was in that era.

The general attitude of the American response to this film can be illustrated by Scott’s statement, “Mr. Eastwood . . . exposes some inhumanity on the part of the American good guys.” The overriding assumption here is that America is “good.” Hence, a large part of the film is spent depicting Kuribayashi and Nishi as “good” guys by association, as they have spent time in the United States and have some understanding of American culture. While historically accurate, I find these scenes to be excessive in number and length, and unnecessary in constructing a humanitarian message; it simply exposes the Ameri-centric nature of the film.

Given this Ameri-centric view, I find Scott’s statement, “’Letters From Iwo Jima’ might just be the best Japanese movie of the year” to be particularly appalling. How would Scott know? Most Japanese movies never make it to New York, and I highly doubt Scott has either the time or inclination to see the ones that do. In addition, given differences in Japanese and American aesthetics and tastes, Japanese films would be judged under different criteria than American ones. Scott’s statement only serves to underline the deeply Ameri-centric views that pervade American media, which, I assume, is partly what Eastwood may be trying to question.