10.22.06
lee1990 Movie Review: Flags of Our Fathers
Clint Eastwood hits the home front as much as the beaches in this gut-wrenching look at the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima during the darkest days of WW2.
The story bounces back and forth between the present (which is the home front during the enormous fund raising propaganda campaign that centered on the photo of the flag raising on Iwo Jima), and the very harsh reality of the past (the incredible brutality of the battle itself).
For a war history buff, I must first admit to a factoid that I had never known before: Iwo Jima is a Japanese Island. I had always assumed it was way out in the middle of the Ocean.
The movie is not a rah-rah type of movie, unlike the also extremely well done The Great Raid, but it also steers clear of anti-war cliches. Mr. Eastwood sticks to all the harsh history, starting with the unfortunate and also absolute need to control the truth during war. The flag raising is shown at home as the point of victory, when the actual battle to take Iwo Jima lasted for more than a month after Mt. Sirabachi was taken.
The film avoids all forms of political correctness. It bluntly places on display the wanton brutality shown by the Japanese both in battle and towards their prisoners. The mass suicide by grenade of the Japanese is also displayed. The US soldiers are also not shown as some kind of superhuman saints either (the unfortunate fate of the Native American marine Ira Hayes is blatantly shown and dwelt upon in the movie; it is almost a story more about him than anyone else). It is quite simply the raw brutality of war both on the battlefield and on the home front, and also makes obvious the necessity of both. It also shows the scandal thirst of the media is nothing new; the movie displays on many occasions, and finally dispels the persistent myth that the flag raising was deliberately staged.
All in all, Flags of Our Fathers is a worthwhile, if difficult movie to see.
