Letters from Iwo Jima

I was really looking forward to this second part of the Iwo Jima saga as envisioned by Clint Eastwood. I thought it was the coolest idea - to shoot two movies looking at the same battle from the opposing viewpoints. This one was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and won for Best Sound Editing. Even more I was looking forward to the story as told by the losers... after all, twenty thousand Japanese soldiers died on that little chunk of rock and held off the overwhelming American forces for 40 endless days. The stuff of epic...

I was HUGELY disappointed in this film. Where do I begin? I'll start with the writing (best screenplay?) which I found so loaded with stereotypes as to be almost comical and so obviously written by an American; her surname may be Japanese but it is very clear that her native culture invented McDonald's. There are the repetitive battle scenes straight out of Flags of our Fathers with little change in perspective, all cleverly tied together so that the two movies mirror each other - neither offering any insight into the other. And after a half hour of reading subtitles of uninspired dialogue and watching even talented actors like Ken Watanabe overact all over themselves to give this mess meaning, I was ready to commit hari kari.

Again, Clint Eastwood is a lazy storyteller. I guess I understand shooting battle footage once for the sake of the budget, but could we have altered the camera angles or something? He used the same soundtrack, for heavens sake. Maybe I could have been kinder if I had seen this movie first... but I doubt that there was a need to make it at all. At least Flags had a point. Website here.

Jesus Camp

Documentaries can be borrring. I can tell you that this one is anything but. It's harder to look away from than a train wreck and was rightfully nominated for Best Documentary. Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, who admit to having no previous experience with the Evangelical movement, managed to make a film that walks the most incredible line ever imagined. The religious subjects of their film were delighted with it. And anyone not of that bent will be horrified. As I was.

Jesus Camp follows three intelligent, articulate children (Levi's 13, Rachel's 10 and Tory is 11) as they experience the "Kids on Fire" summer camp in Devil's Lake, North Dakota. Pastor Becky Fischer is the force behind the children's ministry where kids as young as 6 are taught to become dedicated soldiers for Christ. Becky shares, the kids share, their parents share the very passionate beliefs they hold about child rearing and the evils of the secular world(read abortion and Muslims.) The only voice of dissent present in the film is that of Mike Papantonio of Air America as he reiterates our rights of separation of church and state.

These brilliant filmmakers manage to remain completely neutral as they present this material for you. So much so, that of all the folks in the film, only Ted Haggard felt misrepresented (all this prior to his fall from grace.) You can call it what you like, but whipping 7 year olds into hysteria about their need to repent is child abuse in my opinion and was not easy to watch. Still this film puts a spotlight onto a movement in America that is moving more and more into the mainstream. This is an important little film. Official website here.

Flags of Our Fathers

I have a love / hate relationship with Clint Eastwood as a director. On the one hand, I think he has an amazing gift for pulling the absolute best performance out of any actor. On the other, I think he tends to be a lazy storyteller, relying too heavily on those actors. Both his gifts and his flaws are on display in Flags - a moving anti-war film that works despite choppy editing and poor story structure.

Flags of Our Fathers isn't about the battle of Iwo Jima, it's about the famous photo of the flag being raised on Mount Suribachi. The photograph, taken by Joe Roesenthal on the fifth day of the siege on the island, was on the wire service around the world with 18 hours of being taken, and became an icon of victory for Americans. It also launched the six ordinary soldiers caught raising a replacement flag (the first raised was coveted by a high ranking officer) into a weird superstardom. The three who survive long enough to become "the heroes of Iwo Jima" are cast into a propaganda circus, and struggle to make sense of the horrors of it all - war and war machine.

Eastwood gets his performances, most notably from Ryan Phillipe and Adam Beach - who's teary, tender moments are heartbreaking. But it's hard to follow the story as he jumps from narrator to narrator. I got the drift in the end, and it's a good one - that soldiers don't fight wars and become heroes for a cause or even for their country... they fight for the men they eat with, their friends, their mentors. For all it's flaws, this movie puts Saving Private Ryan to shame. Official website (with some nifty history) here.