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STORY STUDY - MEDIUM: FILM - “Letters from Iwo Jima”

Jeffrey Tung
Apr 17, 2017
4 min read

It’s important to remember that in war, every soldier on every side believes they are doing right by their country.

Letters from Iwo Jima is the companion film to Flags of Our Fathers, the two films being filmed back-to-back. Much like how Flags depicted American soldiers’ viewpoint on the Battle of Iwo Jima, Letters depicts the Japanese soldiers’ viewpoint.

Once again directed by Clint Eastwood, screenplay by Iris Yamashita, and story by Yamashita and Paul Haggis, Letters from Iwo Jima is about the Japanese soldiers, led by Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, who are tasked to guard Iwo Jima, getting ready for the eventual invasion by American forces.

The film dives into the lives of the soldiers, both on and off Iwo Jima. The main soldier the film heavily focuses on is Private First Class Saigo, who has a pregnant wife back home that he writes letters to.

If you know the outcome of Flags of Our Fathers, or just history in general, you know exactly what will happen to these soldiers in the end. The film fully acknowledges this, and instead focuses more on the characters. Unlike Flags, Letters has a more linear format, save for a few flashbacks focusing on an individual character.

Something to really take note of is how the film portrays Japanese honor and pride. It’s very clear the Japanese are losing control of the island once the attack starts. After failing to protect his post on Mount Suribachi, Colonel Adachi, requests General Kuribayashi to conduct a suicide mission with his soldiers. Kuribayashi refuses his request, ordering him to keep on fighting, and join the rest of the men on another part of Iwo Jima. However, seeing as how he failed his mission, Adachi disobeys him and gives an order to a commander: suicide. The commander follows this order, and orders his men to use a grenade and allow the explosion to kill them.

In Flags of Our Fathers, you can find the scene that coincides with this event when the American soldiers go through the caves, and finds the exploded bodies of the Japanese soldiers.

Even if the goal is to continue fighting until they can’t, if a commanding officer believes they failed the mission, even if the battle is still being fought, they will end their lives prematurely, hopefully to retain some honor left within them.

It was uncomfortable watching scenes where soldiers are willing to kill other soldiers because they were cowards. After all, why would you kill each other if there is still a war being fought? Remember, what fuels their justification is their honor being sullied, not because (from the Japanese point of view) they are losing the battle; they still need to fight, and are ordered to continue fighting.

All that being said, just because I don’t agree, doesn’t mean I don’t understand. As someone who has an understanding with samurai and their honor-bound duties to daimyo, I can see their point of view when they believe they’ve failed.

I should point out that during the battle scenes, none of the characters from Letters appear in Flags and vice-versa, save for one character: Chuck Lindberg, an American soldier with a flamethrower, although he is uncredited in Letters, and it’s likely a reused shot from Flags.

The violence in Letters is portrayed with the same graphic and harshness as Flags, but this time, the amount of it is significantly lowered. Like I said, Letters focuses on the characters, and what they are thinking and going through in a dangerous and hopeless situation.

The film was released in December 2006, two months after Flags was released. As I’ve said before, this was during a time when I was intrigued with Japanese cinema, and watching as much as I could get my hands on. I found out about the boxed set of these movies, so I quickly bought it once it was released. Despite its depressing topic, I was fully engaged, and found it to be much better than its American counterpart.

And it seems I wasn’t the only one.

At the 79th Academy Awards, Flags of Our Fathers was nominated for two awards, while Letters from Iwo Jima was nominated with four; three of which was for the biggest awards of the show: Best Original Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Picture. Letters ultimately won Best Sound Editing, whose recipients were also nominated in the same category for their work on Flags as well.

When I heard that one director was willing to put in the work to make two films about the same battle, putting the focus of each film on one of the sides fighting, I thought that was an amazing decision. It’s probably an early example of a modern cinematic universe, despite the fact that no main characters of each film appear in the other. But aside from that, it showed that there is only an ugly side to war, and the soldiers in the war only want to fight and protect for their country; it showed they are all people who are going through different journeys, whether it’s dealing with survivor’s guilt, or just wanting to see their loved ones again.