Letters from Iwo Jima

(Movie Review)

As I’ve noted before, it is often difficult to predict how the Japanese will react to Hollywood movies about Japan. Some movies they hate, some movies they ignore, and some movies they absolutely love. (Although you should always take what I say with a grain of salt, because I don’t watch a lot of Japanese TV or pay much attention to the Japanese media).

But this movie seems to be really popular here. There were lots of posters for it when it was in the theaters, and it got a hyped up release at my local video rental store. I’m sure the all star Japanese cast isn’t doing this movie any harm either. And according to Wikipedia, this movie made more money in Japan than in the U.S.

Interestingly enough, the companion film “Flags of our Fathers” (which I haven’t seen yet) was nowhere to be found. I looked around the video store for a while, but with no success. When I got back home, Shoko was pleased with my selection and said everyone had been talking about “Letters from Iwo Jima” lately, but she was completely unaware “Flags of our Fathers” even existed.

At the bar the other night, I commented to some of the other ex-pats about this.

“Well, does that really surprise you?” someone said. “The Japanese aren’t interested in watching the American perspective.”

“But ‘Pearl Harbor’ was very popular in Japan,” I said.

“Yeah, but ‘Pearl Harbor’ was a sappy Hollywood love story,” someone else said. “You know how much the Japanese love sappy Hollywood love stories.”

“Okay, but ‘The Thin Red Line’ got released over here as well,” I said. “Even those old John Wayne World War II movies you can usually find in the video store.”

Some light was thrown on this mystery yesterday when I was in the convenience store the other day and saw an advertisement for “Flags of the Fathers”, which is apparently going to be released next month. I believe this is the opposite order these movies were released in the U.S., but perhaps it is not a bad idea to switch the order in Japan.

Despite the movie's popularity, it did not completely escape criticism in Japan. (And again, because I don’t really follow the Japanese media, I’m mostly relying on this wikipedia entry here).

My resident Japanese, Shoko, said that on the whole she thought the film was fairly accurate, but she did make the following critiques.

1). The gushy emotional letters the soldiers wrote home to their wives and children would have been unusual for Japanese men of that era.

2). Shoko thought the frank talk by the common soldiers and some of the complaining they did was something more reflective of the American soldier than the Japanese. A Japanese soldier of that era wouldn’t have dared to complain about his superiors even out of their earshot.

3). Likewise Watanabe Ken’s character (the general) was too much like an American manager, who was concerned about the moral of his men and felt the need to explain his orders to his subordinates. A Japanese general, especially in that era, would have simply barked out his orders and assumed blind obedience. Perhaps the intended explanation for this was that Watanabe Ken’s character had spent in America, but it still didn’t smell right to Shoko.

4). Lastly Shoko claimed the dialogue in the movie was hard for her to catch at times, and theorized that since this movie was made for Americans who would be reading the subtitles, speaking Japanese clearly wasn’t a priority for the filmmakers. As for me, I can’t tell one way or the other (from my perspective, any movie with Japanese dialogue is hard to catch). Since I haven’t heard this criticism from anyone else, and since all the actors in this movie are professionals, and should in theory be able to speak clearly for the camera, I’m reporting this last one with a grain of salt.

I do not claim to have seen every Japanese movie under the sun, but there is an obvious difference in tone between this movie and a Japanese war movie like “The Men of Yamato”. Both films may be arguable anti-war in their own ways (although I retain my reservations about “The Men of Yamato”), but the disillusionment of the Japanese soldier and the criticism of the Japanese government were completely absent from “The Men of Yamato”. In short, “Letters from Iwo Jima” is probably a movie about the Japanese perspective of the war that could only be made in America.

Which doesn’t completely invalidate it. The film still has a strong message even if it wouldn’t be exactly the same way the Japanese would tell their own story. And as a movie made by Americans for other Americans, it does an excellent job of humanizing the enemy and trying to imagine the war from their perspective. And although this is not necessarily new (I’m told “Tora! Tora! Tora!” showed the war from the Japanese perspective as well. And even “Pearl Harbor” shoehorned in a couple of scenes giving the Japanese perspective) it is a continuation of a positive development.

I guess without seeing “Flags of our Fathers” it is hard to give a complete opinion. After all, it is all too easy to make an anti-war film from the enemy’s perspective alone.

From a cinematic viewpoint I thought this film was a bit long to sit through. It could probably have done with some more time in the editing room. But still worth seeing.

Link of the Day
1968 to 2007--Antiwar Student Movements in the US Then and Now

Letters from Iwo Jima: Movie Review (Scripted)