putting the j in jjosh

Letters From Iowa Jima – B+

Well, somehow I’d had a lot of hype on this film…it won an Oscar, right? So I was really primed for it to be great, and there was definitely a lot to like about it. First of all, it was beautifully filmed. The colors, the shots, the staging, the acting, the art direction — all were absolutely fantastic. And the directing was really solid too, you really felt what he wanted you to feel, the dullness of the preparations, the anxiety of the upcoming the attack, the despair and full-on fear of the battle.

And beyond that, the film did a really powerful job of making you connect with the particular cultural idiosyncracies of the Japanese military. It really made me anxious and fearful when the idea of the honorable suicide began to make itself known. And there were lots of points where Maxine and I found ourselves saying "Why is he doing that?!" Somehow that made a real impression.

But there were a number of cheeseball moments too — from the cliche scene with the soldier and his pregnant wife, to the streaky slo-mo of the letters falling out at the end. And something overall was sort of cliche, though I can’t put my finger on it. There’s something about the films that Paul Haggis does that sort of feel like movie-movies, you know? Million Dollar Baby (yuck), Crash (double yuck), and even to a certain extent Valley of Elah (though I liked that one quite a lot).

Overall Letters from Iowa Jima was definitely worth watching, though not as amazing as I hoped it would be. I wonder if I’d get more out of it if I see Flags of Our Fathers. Hmmmm.