Post by Capo on May 16, 2007 0:10:53 GMT
Letters From Iwo Jima
Clint Eastwood 2006 USA
Japanese troops fail to defend Iwo Jima against the Americans.
Another interesting idea given a bland treatment by Eastwood and Haggis. A narrative consisting of letters found buried on a World War II battlesite - only, the letters aren't integrated into one another at all, and the voice-overs are too sparse to be of any lasting effect, so that the instead come off as cheap emotional manipulation (only at the very end do we get a shot of dozens of letters and an audio montage from them). It outstays its welcome, and though it might be a rare and brave attempt to shed light on the enemy perspective - and aesthetically daring to have it entirely in Japanese too - it comes across in the end as just as ignorant and simple as might have been expected: the Japanese soldiers with the most humanity in them are the ones who have been to America; everyone else is a hateful, demanding prig. It has its moments of moral complexity - American soldiers killing Japanese deserters out of boredom - and it looks nice, with the same monochrome post-production look as Flags of Our Fathers, but it's still very, very bland. There's one moment which pretty much sums up how clichéd a director Eastwood is in setting up scenes - a Japanese soldier decides to take the honourable death of suicide, with his deflated troops marching away outside, and then suddenly stopping for a moment of reflection when they hear the suicidal gunshot from inside - you know it was coming, and there's little reward for sitting through it anyway; the whole thing reeks of potential and, in the end, mediocrity.
Clint Eastwood 2006 USA
Japanese troops fail to defend Iwo Jima against the Americans.
Another interesting idea given a bland treatment by Eastwood and Haggis. A narrative consisting of letters found buried on a World War II battlesite - only, the letters aren't integrated into one another at all, and the voice-overs are too sparse to be of any lasting effect, so that the instead come off as cheap emotional manipulation (only at the very end do we get a shot of dozens of letters and an audio montage from them). It outstays its welcome, and though it might be a rare and brave attempt to shed light on the enemy perspective - and aesthetically daring to have it entirely in Japanese too - it comes across in the end as just as ignorant and simple as might have been expected: the Japanese soldiers with the most humanity in them are the ones who have been to America; everyone else is a hateful, demanding prig. It has its moments of moral complexity - American soldiers killing Japanese deserters out of boredom - and it looks nice, with the same monochrome post-production look as Flags of Our Fathers, but it's still very, very bland. There's one moment which pretty much sums up how clichéd a director Eastwood is in setting up scenes - a Japanese soldier decides to take the honourable death of suicide, with his deflated troops marching away outside, and then suddenly stopping for a moment of reflection when they hear the suicidal gunshot from inside - you know it was coming, and there's little reward for sitting through it anyway; the whole thing reeks of potential and, in the end, mediocrity.