Letters from Iwo Jima

I watched Letters from Iwo Jima today. I was a bit disappointed because it was not as good as I expected. I expected a more coherent storyline about the battle and more expression of personal feeling from the Japanese commanders and soldiers. I think the praises from the US film critics are inflated by their emotional attachment to the cruelty of the battle on Iwo Jima.

The movie ends with a shoot where a bunch of archaeologists (seems like amateurs) digging out the bag of letters written by the Japanese soldiers in a cave on Iwa Jima. Those "archaeologists" open the bag and dump the content (the letters the name of the movie refers to) onto the ground from chest high, and the letters fall onto the ground like snow flakes. That looks like dramatic, but it was very troubling to me. It looks like you empty a bag of recycled paper into a recycling bin. Would any sensible archaeologist (no matter how amateur they are) would dump such important historical artifact onto the sandy floor of a cave? At least they should show some respect to the dead, I suppose?

That shoot ruins my mood a lot. The end of a movie is very important to the overall feeling of the audience. In the few minutes we walked out of the cinema, we would rethink the movie. The memory and feeling perceived at the end of the movie is the strongest during those few minutes.

Clint Eastwood also directed Flag of our Fathers which tells the stories of the soldiers who erected the American Flag on Iwo Jima after the intense battle ended. I have not watched it, and it may help to understand the big picture Eastwood wants to tell. But I suppose each of the two movies is a stand-alone complete movie to watch and understand.