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16 February 2008 - 23:59

letters from iwo jima

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. The anniversary is coming up...

But just the same, it was unexpected when I hit it channel surfing this evening. But I knew the place instantly.

Iwo Jima.

And, of course, with Ken Watanabe walking on the exact same sands as my father did 63 years ago, I knew which movie this was.

Letters from Iwo Jima.

It would be a lie to say I've been waiting for this movie to come on. We happened on the DVD several times in stores, this second view of Clint Eastwood's war epic. But opted to pass on buying it.

The wife suggested we rent it to see if we liked it before spending the money.

And yet, with many opportunities to do so, and more than a few idle evenings available to watch it...

We never did.

But this evening, here it was.

So I stayed.

It was about what I expected it to be. While the American perspective of this battle, Flags of our Fathers, is based upon the documented real-life experiences of a selected handful of American soldiers who raised a flag in the battle, there are no comparable tales from Japanese survivors available. So this film is a fictionalized account, based on facts where possible, and some writer's fancy and prejudices for just about everything else. Following a fictionalized Japanese soldier who, like an asian Forrest Gump, manages to be involved in all the major events of the month-long battle.

These, at least, if memory serves, they portrayed quite accurately.

If I am correct in my assumption that producing this film was a requirement for Eastwood getting Japan's permission to film Flags of our Fathers on the island, it is no surprise this film takes a middle-of-the-road approach to the war. Japanese and American soldiers are both presented exhibiting acts of humanity and barbarity.

And perhaps they did. Almost certainly, the Americans did both. But I am disturbed by the revisionism I see in the film. The presentation that there was nobility in Japanese soldiers in a hopeless defense. Courage and bravery, certainly. And determination.

But nobility?

This was not a battle forced upon innocent young men of two nations by simple competing world powers. We need to remember there truly was an evil in that war.

And it was that evil that was defending Iwo Jima. A militaristic bushido culture that, like the Nazis, considered all members of other races to be subhuman, and unworthy of humane treatment. The Japanese culture, not the Japanese government, was every bit as cruel and inhumane as Hitler's SS.

Maybe just a little less efficient.

But I did not expect to see the cruelty and arrogance of that culture dominating the portrayal of Japanese forces in a modern film, sanctioned by the Japanese government.

And I didn't.

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