Review of Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) by Dalem — 22 Jan 2007
This movie is not gripping unless you are some kind of history buff. It is actually rather boring. The dialogue is stiff. The characters are caricatures and I found it difficult to feel emotionally for them, even though I knew that the idea of the film was too feel for these people.
The Japanese cultural trait of suicide and killing your own brothers in arms is played up in the film in a way that you come away thinking how different of culture Japan must have had than us in WW II.
From the way it is presented, you wonder how the battle lasted any time at all since after about 5 minutes of battle in the film, the Japanese seem pretty intent on just killing themselves. This leads me to believe that some re-writing of history must have gone on here.
The whole metaphor about letters seems added on rather than really organic to the film. At some level of ideas, perhaps this films works, but, on an emotional level, it just doesn't work very well.
This review of Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) was written by Dalem on 22 Jan 2007.
Letters from Iwo Jima has generally received very positive reviews.
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