i netflixed "letters from iwo jima" and "flags of our fathers" so i can finally say that i've seen these 2 movies! after watching "letters from iwo jima" and not paying very much attention and thinking it wasn't so hot, i watched it again with more concentration and it was better having done so. a couple things stuck out to me but i'll elaborate later. then i watched "flags of our fathers" and couldn't get into it. i didn't like the heavy use of flashback. maybe i was looking for another war-action picture instead of a guilt-conscious picture about taking credit for holding up a flag in a photo. afterall, the films were marketed as seeing the war or battle from both sides. first of all, that's laughable anyway because they're both made by the same side. it's not like they hired all japanese writers/directors/etc. to make the japanese side of the film and perhaps clint eastwood was just the power/money/producer behind both films.

i had to watch "letters from iwo jima" with subtitles on. i just don't know war/battle terminology in japanese. i know how to say "fire!" but i don't know how to say "cease fire!" or "hold your fire!" for example. i don't know any military ranks in japanese. hell if i can even say any military branch in japanese! (i know base and soldier because i lived in okinawa afterall, but as a peaceful person i do not have a war lexicon in japanese.) after watching both and having not really read reviews prior or discussed it with anyone, i decided to search the net from some intelligent reviews/comments/criticisms. i came across a japanese site with remarks in english. great, this will save me the trouble of completely ignoring japanese sites because i couldn't bother with cracking open a dictionary for all the kanji i can't read and vocabulary i don't know. some things that stood out to me stood out to the reviewers, namely, why did the characters in "letters from iwo jima" refer to a rifle as "raifuru", a japanization of a foreign word. in those times they refrained from using foreign words. the reviewer did not say what word would have been appropriate so i don't know. "teppo" might just be for handgun. i also thought it was curious that one japanese character had a bakery. i guess i just don't know the history of bread in japan. i thought it flourished after world war 2 in the schools because everyone ate what the school provided, such as curry bread, etc. (yes, i watched a news piece in japanese on school lunches.)

i also needed to read the reviews from japanese because i just didn't fully grow up in japan and i don't know what japanese think of the war. i know what okinawans think of the war and japan because of the war. but i've never watched a japanese world war 2 film or discussed political things or touchy subjects in history with a mainland japanese person. a very interesting comment i came across in one of the japanese reviews was that the person noted "flags of our fathers" was much better received at the box office and by viewers in japan, whereas the opposite is true in america. the reviewer noted that perhaps it is a case of liking the film that portrays the other side because the other side is foreign to us and the film helps to bridge the gap. duly noted. that means that i am definitely american. it is very true that i don't understand the japanese side of the war. i just can't. i've read some history as well to help understand what lead japan up to that point. i can understand more but i can never condone. to be fair, i can never condone atomic weapons either but that's going beyond the scope of these 2 films.

i also think it's important to note as one reviewer put it that the so called good guys of the japanese side of both films were those who had spent time in america or had american sympathies. that is clearly a deception being pulled by hollywood. another point which i would have never considered is the scene where the superior officer is whipping the lowly officers as punishment. this is very western or hollywood at least. japanese don't whip, they bitch slap! then there's the matter of the japanese military police being depicted in a nazi-esque manner. (for the record the subtitles never mention military police. they leave it at 'kempeitai' and i didn't fucking know that was the military police back in those days so like others viewing it with subtitles would have known.) there's little cultural nuiances like this that prevent the film from being 'from the japanese perspective' as the marketing suggest and ultimately may taint the way non-japanese see japan. now, it'd be interesting to perhaps watch these films again and discuss with my actual relatives and friends on both sides of the pacific.