Though not a Japanese production, I wanted to see Letters From Iwo Jima for its listening comprehension practice potential, as well as wanting to observe the results of the collaboration between Clint Eastwood and Ken Watanabe. Additionally, I thought this might be a story of more interest to me than its companion film Flags of Our Fathers, which was also directed by Clint Eastwood.

Letters From Iwo Jima is a polished production, but somehow in my life I have managed to refrain from becoming so desensitized to violence to be able to enjoy the grotesqueries used in films like this. I was not bothered by the intensity and overall attempts at realism this movie was shooting for. It was the decision to reveal several scenes of violence in their absolutely most explicit details that disturbed me. I believe such scenes are often now used in films to titillate more than to support stories.

There is one argument that we need to see brutally realistic depictions of violence to understand how bad it is. Either I am evolutionarily superior, or that argument is a load of crap. I certainly have never needed to see graphic depictions of violence to know how bad war and violence is, and I do not think I am superior. To me, the argument that people “need” to see violence graphically presented to be better human beings is simply ridiculous.

Any film that gives me mild feelings of nausea reminiscent of the feelings I had watching the sleazy and pornographically violent The Passion of the Christ, is definitely a film that is going to be difficult to recommend.

I fail to see how watching extremely explicit imagery of people committing suicide with hand grenades is really necessary to help me understand the universe better. I cannot accept the notion that I am somehow more enlightened and carry greater wisdom as a result of being subjected to such explicitly horrific scenes. The information and story of Iwo Jima could have been effectively revealed without the close up gory special effects sequences. If you wish to know the history and tragedy of Iwo Jima, reading a book or watching a documentary would be more informative while also allowing you to bypass the desensitizing and nausea inducing scenes in Letters From Iwo Jima. But of course part of the problem now is that we as a society are not getting so sick and nauseous from such displays. What is required for a film to shock and stimulate is being escalated daily by what we are choosing to expose ourselves to.

And to those who say, “Dan, it's a war movie and realism is a natural evolution of film. What do you expect?”
My reply is, “You are absolutely right! I should have known better and not viewed this film!”

That's enough of me whining. If you enjoy war films with a strong sampling of gore, I'm sure it is fair to say this one is very well done. Many of the characters are interesting, skillfully introduced, and very sympathetic. I regret the film left me feeling repulsed and dwelling on its explicit violence. I would have preferred to write a review that dealt with the many interesting soldier stories found in Letters From Iwo Jima. The real value of this film is to be found in those stories.

I would suggest that the most compelling tragedies of war are not the close up details of bodies blowing up. The tragedies of significance are the exterminated young adults, devastated families, and lost alternate world that might have been if so many lives were not casually snuffed out by the instinctive and tribal nature of man.

As I have acknowledged in other reviews on this site, I am probably a film viewer with more delicate sensibilities than many when it comes to violence. When I was a kid I can remember feeling sick from watching mild but emotionally charged fight scenes. I remember becoming particularly ill from an exeptionally violent assault scene in the remake of the movie Cape Fear. It's a little ironic, since I've spent many years as an adult fighting in full contact martial arts. But real fighting becomes more of a technical activity when there has been training and preparation for it. It is not so emotionally violent as a film scene can be.
Even as an adult, I obviously still don't enjoy too much overt or explicit violence in films.

Another irony for me is that I am a big free speech advocate, and a proponent of personal freedoms in all categories of life. If we are determined to diminish our society by constantly feeding ourselves a diet of violence and terror, then so be it. I just personally think it's a mistake.

Savage Japan Misc. Tidbits
Sound Mixing Errors?
The communication going on during the warfare scenes was not easily heard by me. Interestingly, a native Japanese friend of mine who was back in Japan during this film’s initial release, also had trouble hearing the dialogue in some of the film's combat sequences. She watched it with her mother and said they both found the dialogue difficult to understand.

The inability to discern dialogue would be less noticed by those relying completely on subtitles, as I assume the majority of this film’s worldwide audience was.

The dialogue being overwhelmed by other sounds in the mix could very possibly be a form of realism intended by director Clint Eastwood. However, it is a little odd that not one single Japanese name appears on a 23 name list of credits for sound that I found online.

Maybe there were some (or one) Japanese person who didn't make it on the list, or a Japanese person with a Western name, but it does appear possible that this film was made with not one single native Japanese speaking person significantly involved in mixing the dialogue. I still would bet against that being the case, because it is just too crazy to be believed.

Even more than the sound people, the Western editors would have absolutely needed Japanese assistants, though no Japanese persons seem to be credited in editing either. If I still had the Letters From Iwo Jima DVD in my possession, I would check the complete credits. I may still do so at some point and try to get to the bottom of the mysteriously missing Japanese editing assistants and sound mixing persons that must have been involved with this film.

For Japanese Language Students
I was informed by my friend that all of the actors spoke native Japanese, so Letters From Iwo Jima wasn't unintentionally amusing for native Japanese speakers like Pearl Harbor or many other Hollywood movies are. Often the Japanese spoken in Western films is delivered by an Asian person who does not speak Japanese natively, or who has just learned the lines for their character. The speaking actors in Letters From Iwo Jima were indeed Japanese, so pronunciations can be trusted in this Western produced Japanese language film.

I think only a Fair rating is merited for Letters From Iwo Jima for use in Japanese language listening comprehension practice. I chose Fair over Poor for Japanese language practice because there is a good amount of Japanese dialogue that can be heard before the fighting gets under way.