A Letter on "Letters"

Dear fellow film fans,
For the next few weeks, you have an unprecedented opportunity to see a pair of movies exactly as their director designed them to be seen -- together.

On Tuesday the 6th, Clint Eastwood's "Flags of Our Fathers" came out on DVD. I was one of the lucky folks who snapped up a rental copy this week and then managed to get to the nearest theater showing the companion film "Letters from Iwo Jima" in less than 24 hours. Seeing them essentially back-to-back made comparing and contrasting the two simple. It also made for a holistic cinematic experience. While each film can stand alone (and well), taken together, the message of each is more powerful and more profound.

Here's why I'm urging you to try and do the same:
First, if you're not familiar (or comfortable) with the style of a subtitled "foreign" film, starting with "Letters" might be chewing off a bit much at one time. The actors were filmed speaking Japanese, and for the novice film-goer, that takes a bit of getting used to. But because each movie serves as the backdrop for the other, you can't let a little thing like subtitles scare you away from one of the films or you'll only have one side of the story.

Second, you don't have to worry that because the films are telling different "sides" of the same major WWII battle, it's going to seem like watching a tennis match twice, just from seats at opposite ends of the court. There were a few rare moments in "Letters" where I caught myself asking: "Did I see this before?" But I think it only seems that way, in part because "Flags" was so fresh in my mind. And frankly, that was a good thing, because the films don't "mirror" each other. Rather, any common touchpoints from the battle for Iwo Jima (the raising of the American flag on Mt. Suribachi, for example) aren't American-vs.-Japanese perspective, but just threads that intertwine on the back of the tapestry of history. You can't look at all the knots and tangles on the back of a tapestry, focus in on one or two colors and figure you've understood the weaver's design. It won't make sense until you look at it from the front and see how all the threads came together to form the finished work.

Third, it's not so much the battle that Eastwood is trying to capture on film, but the personal battles each character faced. Just because the soldiers from each country were considered enemies doesn't mean they didn't have fears, failings, or fortitude in common. Yes, the critics are right and "Letters" is the better cinematic achievement of the two, and the better "war movie" of the pair, but that is almost irrelevant. (Almost, considering "Letters" could walk away with the Best Picture Oscar this year.)

What Eastwood wants to get at, it seems, is that while war is hell and the soldiers tasked for it do want to serve ably, and hopefully, nobly, the greater hell is going home without the guy that fought next to you. And it would seem that holds true no matter which "side" you were on, or under what circumstances you actually make it home. And further, it seems the truth of all of that is something that's sometimes too difficult for a soldier to share with the people he loves most. Eastwood seems to caution us against claiming to understand a battle or the soldiers that fought it if we're basing it primarily on a famous photo, or a letter from the front -- or just one movie.

Most sincerely,
your aspiring amateur film buff (me!)