Letters from Iwo Jima

It is far easier to hate an enemy than to attempt to understand them, far easier to take refuge in clichés and propaganda than examine the causes of a conflict.

In a time of war, to suggest that the other side is anything but barbaric invariably results in the speaker being labeled a fool at best, a traitor at worst. But the passage of time allows us the necessary distance to look back dispassionately on our national conflicts. The value of a film like Letters from Iwo Jima will be in the way that it teaches us to consider the humanity of our enemies.

Nominated for four academy awards, this latest offering by director Clint Eastwood examines one of the most devastating land battles in the Pacific theatre of World War II. More than six decades ago the US and Imperial Japanese armies clashed on the volcanic island of Iwo Jima. Both sides considered it a crucial location, the last barrier to an invasion of the Japanese homeland. The deaths of seven thousand US soldiers make it a much remembered battle; the deaths of more than 20,000 Japanese soldiers have hallowed the island’s black sands.

Eastwood recently released Flags of our Fathers, a harrowing movie which retold the battle from an American perspective. But he says he felt compelled to create a companion piece that reflected the Japanese perspective if he was going to be truly faithful to the story. Letters from Iwo Jima is based on the discovery of a cache of notes written by the ill-equipped Imperial defenders to their families back home as they face the prospect of battling the American military machine. In them we discover ‘barbaric invaders’ who love their children, worry about the state of the kitchen floor and pray that they will see their wives’ faces again.

Probably the most humanizing feature of the film is the way it portrays the various soldiers’ attitudes to life and death. I have grown up in an age that presented the Japanese forces as unrelenting savages with no value for human life. However the letters uncovered reveal more than two-dimensional caricatures. Private Saigo (Kazunari Ninomiya), a kind-hearted baker missing his family, wonders at the forces that have brought him to digging fox-holes on a beach in the Pacific. “This is the hole we will fight and die in,” he thinks. “Am I digging my own grave?”

A large amount of the film is devoted to the Japanese characters’ thoughts on what is worth living and dying for. Some continue to espouse a propaganda that demands they sacrifice everything for the Japanese way of life. Others fight with as much determination, but are motivated by the idea of providing their families one more day of safety from the American invaders. What comes out clearly in either case is the idea that our lives are not simply to be lived, but to be lived with honour. In fact, a life lived without honour but simply for the sake of comfort or self-preservation is a shameful thing. It is a viewpoint that finds resonance in the wisdom literature of the Old Testament:

“A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold. Rich and poor have this in common: The Lord is the Maker of them all.” (Proverbs 22:1-2, NIV)

One poignant moment in the film shows some Japanese soldiers reading the mail of a dead GI. It’s a note from his mother who reflects on the responsibility for her son to do more than simply obey orders. “Do what is right,” she says, “because it is right.”

An interesting aspect of the film is that no-one in the film actually doubts the existence of the afterlife to which the battlefield is leading them. The letters that form the basis of the film present us with characters who are convinced that they will be held accountable for their actions. Some might say this is simply a reflection of the period, but I’m not so sure. I’m reminded of that time-honoured saying, ‘There are no atheists in fox-holes’, suggesting that life-threatening situations wipe away the pretence that there is no God.

One such example is Saigo’s journey out of his bunker to empty his unit’s latrine bucket. He is already feeling bitter that he has been landed with such a smelly job and his mood doesn’t improve when he trips and the bucket falls down a deep shell crater. Just as he about to fish it out with a broken stick, the American artillery begin a heavy bombardment that threatens to destroy not only the bucket but him as well. It’s at that point that he cries out to the sky, “Is this some kind of joke? Why are you always picking on me?” But then moments later a shell lands next to his head – and doesn’t explode. His response? “Thankyou God! I take back what I said!” War can be an effective tool in the hand of the Almighty to remind us of just how puny we are, and how much we need His power to survive this world and the next.

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