'Letters from Iwo Jima' (2006)
Clint Eastwood’s superbly poignant, thoughtful and stately World War II drama about the eponymous battle is in Japanese, with English subtitles, and told from the point of view of Japanese soldiers before and during the contest between imperial Japan and the United States. With soldiers hampered by conflicting battle plans, insufficient ammunition, inadequate supplies and waning governmental support, the film paints a vivid and wrenching picture of a tragically lost cause. With Eastwood’s Flags of our Fathers as a companion piece, it serves as a powerfully elegiac tribute to fallen soldiers on both sides in the Battle of Iwo Jima.
