Letters from Iwo Jima (preceding title: Red Sun, Black Sand , Japanese title: iōjima will kara No tegami) is a Film of war carried out by Clint Eastwood and left to Japan the December 9th, 2006. He reports the Bataille of Iwo Jima from the Japanese point of view. This film had an exit limited to the United States the December 20th and left the February 21st 2007 to France. Based on the book Picture Letters from To order in Chief of the general Tadamichi Kuribayashi, played with the screen by Ken Watanabe, Letters from Iwo Jima is complementary with film of Clint Eastwood Flags off Our Fathers .

Synopsis

The film follows the history of two good friends serving as the Japanese side at the time of the Bataille of Iwo Jima, lasting the Second world war. The battle is thus depicted Japanese side, when Mémoires of our fathers presented the American side. The opening of film passed, showing Japanese archeologists carrying out of the excavations in the caves, the transition is carried out on the arrival of the new general in load of the defense of the island in preparation for its nearest invasion, the US Navy concentrating its forces with Saipan (the Northern Marianna Islands). When it lands, the soldiers are trenching in volcanic sand along the beaches of the island, improbable refuges vis-a-vis the unfavourable firepower about breaking out. The general Lieutenant Kuribayashi learns only tardily, of the mouth of the baron Nishi, the ruin of the Japanese imperial fleet with the Bataille of the gulf of Leyte, which the Mikado carefully avoided spreading while seeking to minimize the defeatism among the rows: the two men perceive then, any means of counter-attack being destroyed, that the defense of the island calls with the sacrifice of all.

Evaluating the possibilities of defense, Kuribayashi is confronted with officers blunt who sometimes refuse his orders or do not include/understand them: whereas he preaches a defense of the reliefs of the island, they prepared trenches on the beaches in the hope to contain the unloading as of the first hours. It is only when the metropolis requires the repatriation of the planes for later defense that the officers become aware of the fight to the death which is announced, and of the vanity of the preparations which they had engaged.

Confirmation of these impressions at the time of the arrival of the ships, Japanese estimating the manpower of the unloaded troops at 20.000 whereas the United States concentrated on this operation the most important forces of the campaigns of the Pacific: from now on, each one must act as well as possible according to its direction of the good .

Distribution

Analyzes

Form

Whereas the narration of joint film Mémoires of our fathers was formed using ceaseless passages of the engagements on the island with the lives of the soldiers of return in America, Lettres of Iwo Jima is presented by the means of a structure Linéaire; the only moments breaking this traditional narration are the reminiscences of the various soldiers of which context and engagement are shown through sequences recalling in which varied ways they apprehend the conflict against the Americans in whom the Empire of Japan engaged.

Fund

Another comparison perhaps given to two films:
- the first showed the advent of a strategy of Propagande in the course of constitution based on the exploitation carried out by the political power of the photograph of the GI' S hoisting the flag on the Suribachi mount. Contrast consisted in for Eastwood revealing the distress lived by the protagonists, coming from the shift between the test of fire at the time of the catch of the island and testimonys of bravery which theirs are requested from the country in order to cause a lifting of funds per popular subscription to finance the war.
- the second watch, at the civil Japanese individuals as soldiers, the effect which produced a Propagande already installed and orchestrated by the State over several years, based on the nationalism, the imperial exaltation and the feeling of superiority. These reducible elements with the gimmick the victory or death take a direction prégnant the day before the arrival of the invaders on the national ground, completely precise direction in the Japanese cultural context: it calls with the personal sacrifice by Seppuku or any other means to avoid shame not to have known to defend its position. This time, on the individual level of the protagonists, the conflict is also interior since they must be located compared to this collective weight requesting their suicide or a load with the right enemy on an unquestionable death; little overcomes the shame of rendering in order to try to survive these critical moments.

Originality

The setting in scene of two films giving the unfavourable prospects on the subjective level is without precedent among the Hollywood productions; criticism encensé the step besides while advancing that Eastwood had carried out film on the Histoire of Japan that the Japanese cinema had never dared to make. The junction point of two films of course takes place at the time of tension at the time of the key scene of the unloading, when at the end of the binoculars of cut off the Kuribayashi general, it is the other film which is held: this setting in correlation is a prowess of cinema.

Vanity of the war

The development of the two characters of the Kuribayashi general and the baron Nishi, by the means of their former stories, famous of the vanity of this situation of war which will see them perishing. Both had close links with America; one at the time of the bringings together with the Staff of the fleet of peaceful in the Thirties, the other at the time of its participation in OJ of Los Angeles of 1932, for which he cherishes the memory of his horse of horse show, Uranus . Without anything to disavow of their engagement towards the empire, they have thus reasons to find circumstantial and without goal this opposition to their friends of yesterday.

Reception of criticism

• the December 6th 2006, the National Board off Review off Motion Pictures named Letters from Iwo Jima " better film of the année".

• the December 6th 2006, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association in the same way named Letters from Iwo Jima " better film of the année".

• Golden Globe 2007 - Better Film in Foreign language (Best Foreign Language Film).

See too

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