The director, Clint Eastwood, had a seemingly insurmountable task; capture the story of the American soldiers at Iwo Jima, who raised the flag that became a symbol of our nation’s fortitude AND tell the story of the Japanese soldiers who defended that island and lost their lives in the process. He wisely decided to split these competing yet complementary stories into two films; Flags of Our Fathers becoming the American side of the story. Flags follows the six soldiers leading up to the battle, during the fighting, and the three surviving soldiers who were sent stateside, after the famous photograph captures the American public’s imagination. Eastwood is a master storyteller and a skilled filmmaker, capturing both the details of the men’s lives and the overarching story of the war both on the battlefield at Iwo Jima and people’s perceptions of the war back in America.
John Doc Bradley (Ryan Phillippe, Crash), is the navy medic who helped raise the flag in the picture, and the audience is primarily told the story through his experiences and his son’s narration, as he researches his father’s past. The other five soldiers are Marines, with Rene Gagnon and Ira Hayes being the other two men who accompany Doc on the public relations tour to raise money for the war. Eastwood draws strong performances out of his cast of mostly character actors, fleshing out who these three men were, and the personal demons that haunt them.
The barrage of the island and subsequent storming of the beach, were majestically presented so the audience could see the epic scale of the battle. Eastwood also used his cameras in amongst the action, side by side with the soldiers, so we could feel the chaotic nature of the charge through the water, and up the beach, as the world seemingly exploded on all sides of them. The Japanese soldiers were a nameless and faceless threat on all sides of the Americans, rarely seen in the film.
Some of the more interesting aspects of the film take place when the soldiers are in America. The three men are met with warm cheers by the public, while they are dealing with the guilt of leaving their comrades behind and flashbacks of the horrors they experienced on the island. The fickle nature of the public is explored and the government’s seeming callousness to the actual men behind the symbolic picture. Hayes, a Native American, is especially haunted by leaving the frontline and deals with the racism of fighting for a public that does not quite accept him, by turning to alcohol. Paul Haggis (writer of “Crash”) and William Broyles Jr. deserve credit for adapting the book into an emotionally compelling screenplay. As companion pieces, Letters from Iwo Jima, took most of the Oscar acclaim by being nominated for Best Picture and Director, but Flags of Our Fathers should not be overlooked by the public, and deserves equal admiration as the more complicated story to tell.
5 out of 5