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 In the early seventies, John Lennon wrote a song called "Imagine". It challenged the listeners of the day to imagine a world where there was no real reason to kill one another, no need for greed or hunger. Some critics panned it as being somewhat Polyanna-like. Considering the world was just coming out of the sixties and Vietnam was coming to a close, "Imagine"'s flower power theme seemed to resonate the strong sentiments of the masses throughout the world.
In Letters from Iwo Jima, the audience, once again is served some flower power sentiments Clint Eastwood style. Mr. Eastwood has acquired quite a reputation for directing academy-award winning and/or nominated movies such as, Million Dollar Baby, Flags of Our Fathers and Mystic River, just to name a few. Based on the audience's response, Letters from Iwo Jima will prove to be no exception.
In Iwo Jima, one is taken on a journey back to the black sands and deep caves of the island for which the movie is named after. The movie opens up in modern day Japan with Japanese miners searching the caves. They come across a package that is buried deep within one of the caves.
The movie then flashes back to the island during World War II. It is here that we are introduced to Saigo, played rather well by Kazunari Ninomiya, a simple baker, as he describes himself. He is taken away from his loving wife, Hanoko, portrayed by Nae Yuuki, who is pregnant with their first child. He is "volunteered", so to speak,to join the ranks of other "volunteered" civilians, to serve in the Japanese Imperial Army, to fight and die in honor for their country...yada...yada...yada.
 Letters from Iwo Jima
Saigo and his closest companion Shimizu, played equally as well by Ryo Kase,are eventually rescued from their brutal superior officers by General Kuribayashi. Actor Ken Watanabe does a beautiful job as the general. Together Kuribayashi and Saigo forge a friendship rarely ever found between a soldier and such a high-ranking officer.
The movie-goer is introduced to a few other characters, such as General Nishi, Kuribayashi's long time friend, who, along with Kuribayashi, encourages the soldiers to practice mercy with fellow soldiers and enemy captives. As the movie progresses, one finds him or herself rooting for the Japanese soldiers. We discover that these young men, boys if you will,are no different in what their needs are, what their dreams are and what it is that they truly fear.
In the 140 minutes that we sit and watch this movie, we are touched by the many scenes,besides the graphic details that depict what bullets and hand grenades can do to the human body. One scene that stands out occurred when General Nishi reads a letter that he finds in the pocket of a young, dead, US marine to his soldiers. Nishi orders his men to bring another marine, who was found alive but wounded, into the cave, give him water and show him mercy and kindness.
As Nishi reads the letter,the soldiers grow very still and quiet, simply because the letter, which was written by the deceased soldier's mother, sounds much like the letters that the Japanese soldiers received from their mothers. They experience an epiphany. They have what might be coined as an "All Quiet on the Western Front" moment. They realize that this young man is no more an enemy than the boy sitting next to them.
Suddenly all the brainwashing and propaganda about the American soldiers is removed and replaced with a much higher truth. The movie's theme did not carry a political message, only a thought-provoking one. Besides the obvious, "there are two sides to every argument", a few other messages are spelled out quite clearly. These include, but are not limited to: In spite of our ethnic differences and religious and political convictions, we all pine for the same things. We all want to be loved. We all want the simple creature comforts that life can offer us. Most of us have mothers who love us and encourage us to "do the right thing because it is right", as the young marine's mother wrote in her letter.
After seeing this movie, and seeing how human, normal and familiar these soldiers were with the internal strife and office politics, which the movie hinted to be the Japanese side's downfall, one cannot help but wonder what would have happened if the officers on both the US and Japanese sides sat down together? What if they shared their grievances with one another about the aggravations of being an officer? Maybe both sides would realize that they weren't each other's enemies after all.
Maybe a Polyanna-like world is not so far out of our grasp. Maybe it is possible to do more than just imagine.
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