As has been the pattern in the last few years, Eastwood delivers a film that is very much issued from the Hollywood mould, and that has enough democratic appeal to please a wide audience and enough ‘key people’ to garner various nominations. I know very little about what goes on in LA, but I suspect that Eastwood and Haggis must have quite a few friends in Tinseltown.

The problem I have with Letters from Iwo Jima is the same I had with Million Dollar Baby or Mystic River and with Haggis’s Crash. These films are only a semblance of what they claim to be. They pretend to depict a reality that in fact can only exist in a romanticized view of life. They pretend to deal with a certain harshness of life but can’t help burying this harshness under a pile of motivational speaker-type messages. They want to talk about the evil in the world but spend more time talking about the good. They are afraid to contemplate imperfection and only imperfection. They want to depict the average person’s suffering but only succeed in describing stereotypes and people whose personalities and actions make them stand outside of the norm.

These people may exist, but are the minority. Does this mean that they shouldn’t be depicted in film? Of course not. They have a place but not as part of a greater message that seems to imply that we are all capable of these actions, that honour and value lie in our ability to perform such acts of courage or redemption. We should all aim to be better human beings but cinema is a difficult medium to catch the nuances, properties and cultural implications of such a message. It is not the attempt of the message that is at stake but the method of delivering it. When Eastwood or Haggis do it, I can’t help but feeling that I have just paid to attend a seminar on self-improvement and motivation…
What European and Russian cinema taught us decades ago (and other cinema cultures since) is that, often, the best way to tell life stories is through simplicity, lack of glamour, lack of in your face messaging and by not necessarily attempting to have direct control over the emotions of the audience. Let the story tell the tale. Let it unfold the message. Let the audience take its message. Just tell the story.

Attention: Spoiler Ahead:
Letters from…romanticizes the battle of Iwo Jima. The central character is a sweet, a bit absent-minded young soldier who would rather be home with his wife. By choosing this character, Eastwood already tells us that this story is going to be made more accessible, and thus, less realistic and more emotionally controlled. Naturally, at the end of the battle, conveniently still carrying a shovel around which he will use to burry his boss, he survives and is shown to be the only survivor. How romantic. Except that more than 200 Japanese were made prisoners during the battle. The two main officers are portrayed as fair, reasonable and, very much interested in America. Why not? Sure, why not. It is not what you say, it’s how you say it. And then there is the constant feeling that the Japanese have only about 50 men on the island and that the Americans have, well, millions if I judge by the absurd number of CGI ships shown on the water. I mean there were thousands and thousands of ships on that water. Except that, once again, this seems to be far from what actually happened. This distortion of facts serves to exaggerate and thus, to tilt the emotional balance and to control the audience. All filmmakers control their audience, but some do it in more subtle way than others. Eastwood does it in a way whose obviousness is actually insulting.