Resolution 9 - Clint Eastwood Quest - 100% Complete

With only a day to spare of 2013, I have finally vanquished the 10th and final film of the Clint Eastwood collection with the 2006 classic, Letters from Iwo Jima (trailer). This is the second film of the collection of which Eastwood only directs and not stars in, with the other being Mystic River. This is the third World War II movie of the collection. However this one was made a few decades after Where Eagles Dare and Kelly's Heroes, and takes place on the Japanese front.

Eastwood makes it pretty clear the Japanese are done for, as the first act of the movie is the troops preparing fortifications and defenses on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima. The troops know it, the officers and commanders know it too, yet the film is also clear of them dying for honor of their country, and conveys this through various letters from the featured officers and soldiers throughout the film. The main soldier featured goes by Saigo (Kazunari Ninomiya), and I could not help but grieve for him throughout the film as island of Iwo Jima falls and the film fills out Saigo's backstory.

The other main featured Japanese actor is General Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe). Him and Saigo have a few brief encounters sporadically throughout the film, but they are extremely well done exchanges for as brief as they are, especially in the film's closing moments. I did not see this as a politically driven "why did we invade here" movie, like Green Zone, but more of a empathetic look at what it is like to be from the soldier's perspective of going into a battle you know they are going to lose, and what they are laying on the line and why they are doing so. It reminded me a bit of the last battle in The Last Samurai, but this was far more well done.

This was probably one of the few movies I can think of only watching and having this emotion of nonstop sadness throughout from beginning to end. I know what is coming, it is bleak, and the film pulls no punches. I hate to recommend watching a heartbreaker of a film, but there is a part of me that loves powerful movies, and this one is incredibly powerful. As with all the Eastwood movies I have covered here, Netflix has the disc, but it is not up on streaming, but if you want to follow along on the Clint Eastwood collection fun with me, here is a link to the box set I have off Amazon.

Thanks again to everyone for joining me throughout the year as I reviewed almost one Clint Eastwood movie a month for 2013. Going by my traffic stats, this was the most popular resolution by far on the blog. Even one person recently got me two more Clint Eastwood DVDs for Christmas last week in the form of Blood Work and Paint Your Wagon (Thanks John!). I have no idea if I will review those ones, but I have been bouncing around the idea of reviewing one Star Trek film a month next year since there are exactly 12 of those in existence as of this writing, so we will see where 2014 takes me! Shoot me a tweet on Twitter @Gruel if you have any requests!

Past Eastwood Collection Blogs

Million Dollar Baby
Unforgiven
Trouble With the Curve
Mystic River
The Rookie
Absolute Power
Dirty Harry
Kelly's Heroes
Where Eagles Dare
Gran Torino