Film Review: "Letters from Iwo Jima" (2006)

This slow, subtitled World War Two drama tells the story of the US invasion of the island of Iwo Jima in 1944 from the point of view of a rag-tag bunch of hopelessly outnumbered Japanese conscripts. Left to defend themselves without any legitimate chance of victory, the recruits face a number of very difficult decisions about the honour of surrender and which path to follow when multiple commands are given by incoherent leadership, all under the spectre of inevitable death.

Despite the Best Picture nomination, this morality tale about the horror of war is nothing we haven't seen before. By playing up the common humanity theme, the viewer is reminded that militarization should only be used as a weapon of last resort. This is driven home by several scenes which border on the gruesome, particularly in the second half of the film. Be forewarned. It should also be noted that the soundtrack of the first half is marred by the faint yet extremely irritating sound of air sirens in the distance in probably three-quarters of the scenes. For me, this really took away from the viewing experience.

Bottom line is that if movies like "Platoon" and "Saving Private Ryan" interest you, you'll like "Letters from Iwo Jima". If not, you won't be missing much.

Overall rating: 7.75/10