“Banzai!” is the familiar battle cry of Japanese soldiers as heard in every stereotyping depiction of *their* side in old Hollywood’s one-sided World War II movies. The yelling enemy troupes were a nameless, inhuman monolith of willful bloodthirstiness then.
The call of “Banzai” is heard again in Clint Eastwood’s unforgettable “Letters From Iwo Jima.” But this time it seems to signify the fading hope and tragic desperation of fully realized men — race and nationality be darned — who know they are about to leave behind forever the families who love and need them.
Easily one of the best films of 2006, now being released to theaters in our area, this companion piece to Eastwood’s “Flags ofOur Fathers” is revolutionary. It re-examines the deadly skirmish over the strategically important Pacific island of Iwo Jima in World War II from the point of view of the losers and it does so with both grit and empathy. It took nerve (plus some soulfulness) for the former macho Dirty Harry to craft such a compassionate, fervent anti-war film — in the Japanese language, no less!
In some ways, “Letters” is a traditional war picture, though the combat action doesn’t kick into gear until after a full hour of establishing the characters and setting up the tactical scenario in the two hour 20 minute epic. It features a mix of grunt and officer types typical for the genre — including the heroic protagonist to cheer on. The dignified Ken Watanabe (“The Last Samurai”) plays brilliant, benevolent Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi. A book of the correspondence by this real life figure forms the basis of the historical drama, as fictionalized by screenwriter Iris Yamashita.
The story follows the General’s thoughtful preparations to defend Iwo Jima as the massive American armada approaches to attack it. It eventually traces his fate and the fates of a representative sampling of his men as they succumb to the superior U.S. force blazing its way toward Tokyo. Along the way, through flashbacks and their interactions with each other in the crucible of war, we get to know and care about the optimistic young draftee (Kazunari Ninomiya), the elegant former Olympic champion (Tsuyoshi Ihara), and the quietly resigned outsider (Ryo Kase) among others.
With superb acting and evocative cinematography, bleached out to near black-and-white, “Letters From Iwo Jima” is a transporting illustration of the futility of war and of what film can be.
