Obligatory Oscar Post #5

Oscar Nominee: Letters from Iwo Jima
Of all the films nominated for Best Picture, Letter from Iwo Jima presents us with the bag that is the most mixed. One factor in its favor: it is an American movie with the audacity to use subtitles. This is refreshing in light of last year’s Memoirs of a Geisha and other films where foreign language speakers, for some odd reason, speak accented English. The film also fully commits to showing the Japanese side of the Battle of Iwo Jima. In the same way that All Quiet on the Western Front forced readers into the lives of the “enemy”, Letters allows the stereotypes about the Japanese army (unemotional, hyper-patriotic and willing to blow themselves up on order to kill Americans) to dissolve into a more realistic gray area.
Once the film establishes these two novel (and important) elements, it devolves into a fairly pedestrian war movie. There are explosions and gore; messages and morals. This aspect of the film is not handled as creatively as it should be. The present-day bookend segments make the viewer think of Titanic, and that is not a good thing. Director Clint Eastwood is not afraid to apply a heavy hand to this delicate work. The ideas that the filmmakers want to put across are shown in images AND explained in words…just in case you missed them. It is as if they are afraid that the viewer can’t read subtitles and think at the same time.
Like a bag of fresh popcorn mixed with stale Cheetos, Letters from Iwo Jima should be enjoyed for its marvelous aspects and the rest can be discarded.