Flags of Our Fathers

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Flags of our Fathers

There has never been an American filmmaker as productive in his old age as Clint Eastwood. He was 62 when he made Unforgiven back in 1992, and he's directed a dozen more in the 15 years since, including such heavyweights as Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby.

He sustains his high scoring innings with Flags of Our Fathers, the first of two films he made back to back about the Battle of Iwo Jima. (The second, Letters from Iwo Jima, takes is a Japanese perspective on the same conflict, and is coming out in time for Oscar consideration in the US - but not for the BAFTAs).

Film buffs will be familiar with the John Wayne movie Sands of Iwo Jima, in which he played hard-as-nails marine sergeant John Stryker. It's a classic example of Hollywood propaganda, and Stryker's 'Lock and load' line was still being quoted by Republicans Newt Gingrich and Oliver North in the 1990s. Ron Kovic - who Tom Cruise played in Born on the Fourth of July - said that movie was the reason he enlisted in the marines.

The battle itself is famous for the photograph of half a dozen American soldiers leaning in to raise the Stars and Stripes on top of Mount Suribachi, a snap which signaled Victory in the Pacific to many Americans. In fact we now know that what the picture represented is very different from what it symbolized: actually the flag had already been raised a few hours earlier.

Photographer Joe Rosenthal snapped a repeat performance, after the first flag was taken down (some say because it was too small; according to the movie, because an officer wanted the original as a keepsake). In any case the fight for the island would drag on for another month. For US servicemen, it was the bloodiest of the entire war.

Based on the book by James Bradley and Ron Powers, Flags of Our Fathers counterpoints the gruesome reality of the bloody fight for the island (all eight square miles of it) with the hollow hoopla that accompanied the three men brought home to conduct a last-ditch war bonds appeal after Rosenthal's photo caused the national imagination. John "Doc" Bradley (Ryan Phillipe), Rene Gagnon (Jesse Bradford) and Ira Hayes (Adam Beach) are acutely aware that they have been designated heroes for no better reason than they were photographed in the right place at the right time.

While Rene seems happy enough to capitalize on his good fortune, and Doc is persuaded that stumping for cash is also a vital contribution to the war effort; Hayes is consumed with guilt and starts drinking excessively. The other three in the photograph are dead, and one of them has been misidentified, a grievous error the authorities compound with a cover up.

The battle scenes are so de-saturated they're practically in black and white - except for the blood. Eastwood can't match Saving Private Ryan for visceral horror, but the film does make it clear that there is an unbridgeable gap between soldiers' experience of battle and the comprehension of those of us who haven't been there.

Scripted by Paul Haggis (who won his first Oscar for Million Dollar Baby and his second for Crash) Flags of Our Fathers hammers home its points a bit repetitively. It's hardly a revelation that war is hell or that propaganda is bullshit. But where the film gets it absolutely right is by staying true to the perspectives of the men themselves.

It finds its focus in the last half in the poignant fate of Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian, inevitably nicknamed 'Chief'. Subjected to a barrage of unthinking racism throughout the film, Hayes chokes on the word 'hero'. He's the only one to appreciate the disservice such a distortion inflicts on the living and the dead; how close meaningless acclaim might be to disdain. Adam Beach's agonized performance is the film's stand-out.

A long present day coda in which Doc Bradley's son interviews the men who fought alongside his dad to write his book shouldn't work, but I thought it was honest and honourable. A closing shot of Iwo Jima today speaks volumes, and you'll want to sit through the end credits for an eloquent series of war photographs.

Tom Charity

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What is a hero?

A customer from London , 02/01/2007

As the American marines land on Iwo Jima and make their way up the beaches on foot, the camera switches to the point of view of the entrenched Japanese soldiers quietly preparing to open fire. It is a gripping scene that makes the film worth watching just for those few minutes alone. The government’s exploitation of three surviving soldiers who raised the American flag on Iwo Jima in 1945 - when that iconic photograph was taken - makes an interesting story, but I found the long battle scenes difficult to follow as it was hard to tell the characters apart. Consequently when particular marines were talked about in later scenes it was impossible to put a face to the name. Perhaps that doesn’t matter. The difference between a soldier’s concept of a hero and that of their families and politicians back home was made clear and that seems to be the message the film is putting across.

34 out of 36 people found this review helpful

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Excellent..and important.. but not quite brilliant...

PaulaWestwood from Ashton-Under-Lyne [Highly rated reviewer] , 01/01/2007

Wow.. has it really been almost 9 years since Saving Private Ryan (1998 ?), up until then apart from one or two smaller sucesses US World War fodder was of the John Wayne variety, and generally vastly inferior to the UK output. 'Ryan' really changed that, and though this has Clint Eastwood directing, it has Spielberg in a chair there somewhere as producer or whatever, and is a pretty hallmark Spielbergian type film. The inevitable 'Ryan' comparisons must be made, but this is pretty good in its own right and a pretty good telling of an important piece of history of WW2, for the US as well as the UK, after all if these guys hadn't toured the USA (however true or otherwise their whole story) the US war machine was verging on bankruptcy and we may in the UK have lost an important ally. The film again shows pretty well (I guess because I am fortunate enough never to have been involved in war) the horrors of conflict, and the spirit of the men involved. It isn't quite in the huge 'Ryan' sort of leage in its grip on you or the way it unfolds, but because it is well made and because it is still such an important piece of modern history, I would definately class it as well worth a watch.

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Interesting exploration of what a "Hero" really is...

chatters from Torquay [Highly rated reviewer] , 15/02/2008

I watched Clint Eastwood's other Iwo Jima movie, 'Letters from Iwo Jima', telling the Japanese side of the Battle of Iwo Jima, before seeing this movie. I felt ,in that movie Eastwood had been too soft on the Japanese, too PC, seemingly unwilling to upset the Japanese with an authentic portrayal of the brutality and vicousness of the fighting on this small piece of Japanese soil.

Flags of our Fathers shows the same Battle, from the perspective of 3 US service men (Two Marines and a Naval medic) catapulted to the status of 'Hero' simply by being in the, now World famous, photograph of six men raising the US flag on a pole on Iwo Jima's highest point. 3 of the Flag raisers were subsequently killed in the Battle for Iwo Jima, the 3 survivers quickly rushed back to the USA to help raise vital funds, to pay for the American War effort, by encouraging the US public to buy War Bonds.

'Flags' is more graphic, in it's depiction of the human casualties of the Battle, than 'Letters', and as such i feel conveys the horror of the Battles on these Pacific stepping stones towards the Japanese mainland much more vividly.

The emotional depth of the movie is actually stronger in the scenes that take place in the US, as the servicemen are (reluctantly in the case of two men) dragged around from place to place and paraded as Heros. At one point they are ordered to re-enact the climb up the mountain to place the flag, in a large sports stadium under a firework display. When they point out that six men raised the flag, they are told to Imagine their 3 dead comrades are there too. One of the Marines, a native American, hates everything about being pushed into the spotlight and made out to be a hero (just for raising a flag). He is obviously suffering from a form of what is now called post traumatic stress, after his harrowing experiences on the island and is often drunk. When he is seen to be drunk at a fundraising event he is quickly shipped back to the Pacific to rejoin his unit, which, he says, is all he wants anyway.

One thing that goes for both these movies, and is something i really dislike, is the washed out grey hues the movie is shot in. It's neither full black and white or a realistic, natural colour and is really rather surreal. I also think this colouring makes the CGI special effects look less real, there is something really artifical looking about the invasion fleet and the bombardment of the island by US warships. I realise they ARE arifical but in this movie they make some scenes look like drawings in comic books and i knocked a star off because of that.

Overall i enjoyed this movie and the way it makes you think of what we man when we call someone a War Hero.

4 Stars. 8/10

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