Letters from Iwo Jima

Another grim, gray film, somewhat done in by exaggerated expectations. I still think Clint Eastwood may really have something when he puts his two Iwo Jima films into a single saga-length narrative, but this half didn’t grip me as much as I’d been led to expect. Maybe some people need the “war is hell” theme reinforced, but I require no convincing, and this was just so unrelievedly hopeless. Certainly it is striking for Hollywood to look at WWII from the perspective of the enemy, in their own language and in sympathy with their plight. It’s all well done, with fine acting from Ken Watanabe on down (it was in fact easier to keep the Japanese characters straight than those on the other side in Flags of Our Fathers), but still it’s a bit relentless, mechanistic, claustrophobic. (2006, Images, n.) *7* (MC-89.)