This week I saw the best picture of the year.
I've seen lots of movies--we're talking '06--and I wasn't sure I wanted to see "Letters From Iwo Jima" in the theater because I'm lazy about subtitles. Not to worry. Not a problem. This movie had to be made in Japanese. It's amazing that it was directed by an American who presumably doesn't speak English, but I'll get to him soon. (This blog is mainly about him and me. Be patient.) Don't wait for the DVD. This movie is a unique experience, well worth the rising price of admission.
I didn't think "Letters" could possibly impress me more than "Flags Of Our Fathers," but it did. I teach the occasional fiction writing class, and I'm always hammering away about the importance of point of view. I'll be using these two films as my new examples.
First of all, you think you know what this movie is about, and you do. It's the flip side of "Flags." It's the battle --one of WW II's worst--from the side of the enemy. But it's so much more. It's not your 1950's John Wayne movie--although there is a horse. And a dog. The animals function the way they do in many romances--to soften a hero's hard edges.
The main character--Saigo, the baker--has a pregant wife instead of a pet. But he doesn't even need that to make him sympathetic from the get-go. He is Everyman, but he is every bit as Japanese as the guys he's shooting at are American. And therein lies the beauty of the movie. Even though Saigo speaks a language that is foreign to me and wears a uniform that means
enemy, I was not mindful that he was shooting at
my guys. I've seen this done in movies before, but never this well.
Taken together, "Flags Of Our Fathers" (with heartthrob Adam Beach, left) and "Letters" add up to an amazing piece of work. Yes, they're war movies, and yes, there's gore. I don't like bloodletting, but I think it's necessary to depict war in a truthful way. These are not "men's action adventure" films. Not escapist entertainment. They are certainly entertaining for anyone who's entertained by having her heart ripped out, i.e, women. And, yes, there's plenty of action. But this pair of films challenges the viewer to take a risk and experience the lives of other human beings, much the way a memorable book does.
And the artist responsible? These days Clint Eastwood (far left on the set of "Flags") is a well-respected director. I fell in love with him as Rowdy Yates on TV's "Rawhide" back in the 60's, but I stuck with him as he changed the cowboy image from his "spaghetti Westerns" to (left) "The Outlaw Josey Wales" and "Two Mules For Sister Sarah," two of my all-time favorites. As a kid I probably saw every war movie and Western John Wayne ever made, but he rarely played my kind of hero. I love Eastwood's cowboys. Sexy, cool, quotable (in our house and occasionally in my books) and--extremely important--he walks like a cowboy. And now he's an artist. A genius! The cinematography alone in "Letters" is masterful.
I also have a bit of a "thing" about Iwo Jima. I've been there. My dad was a WW II vet and an AF pilot in the 50's and 60's. It amazes me now to realize that when we landed on Iwo on the way from Guam to Japan (lost an engine on the MATS plane, emergency landing) and toured the island in jeeps, I thought WWII was ancient history. But I think it was 1957--a mere 13 years after the battle. I remember the black sand beaches, the view from the top of Mt. Surabachi, the wind, the ocean, and the fact that no one was talking. We'd already heard about the tunnels, and we'd seen pillboxes and wreckage, and I was aware that my father saw more there than what met my young eyes.
At the time there were no civilians on the island, not much besides U.S. military and an airfield, so it wasn't a great place to be stationed. We only stayed long enough to get the plane fixed--a day--but there was very nearly another casualty on that sad island. As we boarded the huge military transport plane my 3-year-old sister saw Daddy standing on the plane. She ran ahead of our mother and up the steps, which were not pushed tight to the plane, and she fell to the tarmac. Get this--there was no X-ray available on the island. The doctor couldn't do anything for her, so off we went to Japan with my mother and sister crying the whole way. Baby sister surprised everyone on the plane by surviving multiple skull fractures. She's been a survivor ever since.
It's all about viewpoint. Each of us brings something to every story we experience, which is why stories outlive their creators. Every time a person reads, hears, sees a story, something new is created. It's such a wonderful process!
I'd love to hear about movies that shook you to the core and actors that you've been hooked on and followed and never mind forking over the cash to watch on the big screen.
