While perhaps not as deeply felt or sweeping in scope as Letters from Iwo Jima, I can’t help but feel that Flags of our Fathers was unfairly overlooked by critics and audiences alike. Taken together, the two films represent a stunning achievement for Eastwood, the least part of which is that he approaches World War II from an angle not yet witnessed by American audiences. In Flags our Fathers, a message about society’s need for heroes emerges, and it’s as biting a rebuke to cooked-up patriotism as Preston Sturges’ Hail the Conquering Hero and The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek.
by Beth Gilligan | Source: Dreamworks DVD
20 Feb 2007 5:07 PM | Comments (1)
I couldn’t agree more. Flags was a reflective, thoughtful movie which ached with sadness for the marines whilst resisting the temptation to take cheap political shots (by way of contrast just imagine the same movie as directed by Oliver Stone). Much of the audience, certainly the younger part, seemed to anticipate in Flags a Saving Private Ryan in the Pacific and were deeply unhappy when they didn’t get that. I would argue that they actually got a much more interesting movie and I think that taken together with Letters from Iwo Jima they represent two of the most accomplished artistic statements about what war does to men in the genre. If Letters deals with men during war then Flags clearly deals with the postwar. Both movies also dramatise with amazing power the culture clash nature of the two sides – the Japanese caught in a perversion of their feudal system which demanded an ‘honourable’ death rather than surrender, and the Americans who of course fought with the intention of coming back alive but in the case of Bradley, Hayes & Gagnon found themselves tormented by their memories of the battle and the fuss over a photograph that meant more to the public and the politicians than it did to any of them. It’s an amazing achievement for Eastwood.
David
18 April 2007
1:17 PM