Letters from Iwo Jima

In Letters from Iwo Jima, director Clint Eastwood complements his Flags of our Fathers by telling the story of the WWII battle for the tiny island of Iwo Jima from the other side, from the perspective of the Japanese soldiers charged with defending the island from the invading American forces.

The film follows several soldiers and officers in the Imperial Army: General Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe), the commander of the forces on Iwo Jima who arrives on the island at the start of the film; Saigo (Kazunari Ninomiya), a conscripted baker who has left behind his pregnant wife; Nishi (Tsuyoshi Ihara), an aristocratic champion horse rider; and Shimizu (Ryo Kase), Saigo’s friend. Through letters written to their loved ones we hear their thoughts and learn something of their past, which gives the film an intimate, personal feel that is, refreshingly, at odds with the epic scope of many war films. The entire first section of Letters from Iwo Jima is all set-up, carefully building up to the invasion of the island, dropping bits of information that show how outgunned the Japanese soldiers were and bringing us into the world of the characters.

The film is shot in the monochromatic colour of the black-blue sands of the beaches of Iwo Jima, in a minimalist visual style that lends considerable authenticity. The few sequences of large-scale destruction are impressive and sometimes hair-raising. A brief shot showing bombs raining destruction on the Japanese soldiers is scary and foreboding, and the extent of the American armada descending onto Iwo Jima is breathtakingly shown. Interestingly, there are no 'god's-eye view' shots in the film. Everything that is shown is as it would be from the perspective of the characters, with many close or medium shots, which forces us to identify with the Japanese soldiers. This identification results in a unique frisson when individual American soldiers--who usually represent the 'good guys'--finally appear to confront the Japanese.

In the last third of the film the attention to character pays off as we follow the ultimate fate of all the soldiers we have come to know. The situation they are in is hopeless, and how they react to their inevitable doom forms the compelling backbone of the film’s concluding passages and lends a dolorous, fateful tinge. The triumph of Letters from Iwo Jima is that it gives a face to an adversary that is usually faceless in fictional depictions of WWII, and shows the Japanese soldiers to be as scared, ruthless, fractionous, flawed, brave, and human as their Allied counterparts.

Clint Eastwood’s Letters from Iwo Jima is a bold, valuable counterpoint to other western World War II films.

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Directed by Clint Eastwood

Written by Iris Yamashita, based on a story by Iris Yamashita & Paul Haggis and the book Picture Letters from Commander in Chief by Tadamichi Kuribayashi, edited by Tsuyoko Yoshida

Starring:
Ken Watanabe...General Tadamichi Kuribayashi
Kazunari Ninomiya...Saigo
Tsuyoshi Ihara...Baron Nishi
Ryo Kase...Shimizu
Shido Nakamura...Lieutenant Ito

Heresy: Bond with Dalton

I've been published! Here's a link to a VUE Weekly article I wrote for their "Heresy" series: http://www.vueweekly.com:80/articles/default.aspx?i=5742.

The Heresy series involves a writer either defending a much-maligned movie or panning a widely-praised one. I took a bit of a different approach and defended a performance: Timothy Dalton as James Bond. Enjoy!

PAN'S LABYRINTH

Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth is an astonishing, vibrant film, alive with magic and emotion, and laced with beauty and violence and the primal fears we carry from childhood. As a work of cinematic fantasy, the film stands easily with the classics of the genre, a touchstone dark fairy tale.

Set in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, the story follows Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), a young girl in the twilight time change from child to adult, and her mother Carmen (Ariadna Gil), who travel to a remote outpost to be with Carmen's new husband, the brutal Capitán Vidal (Sergi López). A cruel sadist, Ofelia's stepfather is on a mission to hunt down and exterminate the last remnants of the Republican army that are scattered in the wilderness. Ofelia, a lover of fairy tales, is drawn into one of her own when she discovers the ancient doorway to a labyrinth in the forest, guarded by a faun who proposes three tests for the little girl to discover if she harbours within her the soul of the princess of a magical underground kingdom. The film alternates between the stark, capricious brutality of Ofelia's everyday life and the lyrical, though sometimes frightening, magic of her forays into the fantastical.

Del Toro masterfully weaves together several story strands--Carmen's difficult pregnancy, Ofelia's completion of the three tests, Vidal's unquestioning and cruel extermination, Republican spying among Vidal's domestic staff--into a richly textured and symbolic exploration of the primal roots of fear, yearning for magic, and the source of our will to destroy others. And in the hands of a talented cast, the characters of the piece shine, bringing vivacity to the artful writing. In the central role Ivana Baquero easily becomes the core of the film, a gracile and engaging performance that would be noteworthy from someone twice her age. Sergi López plays the true monster of the piece to the hilt, lending subtle touches of humanity and even eliciting grudging admiration. The supporting cast are uniformly superb, especially Doug Jones as the faun and the white man, two fantasy creatures brought to convincing life.

In the classic Latin American tradition of magic realism, the film never once feels forced, dexterously fusing the fantastical and the brutally real into one organic and fiercely compelling whole. The film is beautifully designed, especially in the fantasy settings and creatures, and the astonishing visual effects do not call attention to themselves but feel like a natural element. At several points a digital character flutters into the foreground of a shot and the camera moves to follow it, creating the impression that the effect is a syncretic part of the sequence.

In the sure hands of Mexican writer/director del Toro, who has now claimed the apex of genre filmaking, the film winds its way to a compelling, satisfying, and intensely moving finale. Pan's Labyrinth is unquestionably a triumph of cinematic imagination.

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Directed by Guillermo del Toro

Written by Guillermo del Toro

Starring:
Ariadna Gil....Carmen Vidal
Ivana Baquero....Ofelia
Sergi López....Capitán Vidal
Maribel Verdú.... Mercedes
Doug Jones....Pan/Pale Man
Álex Angulo....Dr. Ferreiro