Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Letters from Iwo Jima

I watched a movie "Letters from Iwo Jima" by Clint Eastwood.
Many of you know that the movie is famous for describing the Pacific War from Japanese side.
However, it doesn't mean that the movie was made by the Japanese point of view of the war.

I mean,
if the movie is made by those both, the movie would be different.

In this movie, main characters are all Japanese, such as Ken Watanabe, Kazunari Ninomiya, and Tsuyoshi Ihara. maybe you don't know those actors....(some might know only Ken Watanabe who played for the Last Samurai with Tom Cruise)
Japanese soldiers fought for their country and family.
In many scenes, they remember words of their mother and the time with their family.
Therefore, Americans are enemies for them.

However, one of commanders saved an American soldier's live.
Also, Saigo was saved his live by American soldiers, though they might have wanted to use him as a troop in this case.
Anyways, they were both saved their lives.

I think......
the filmmaker didn't want to decide which is bad or right in this movie.
This is really a hard topic in making a film because they both have an enemy. US is an big enemy for Japan and also Japan is an enemy for US.
This is written from Japanese side, and I haven't watched a movie "Flags of Our Fathers" yet, but I think those two movies which are opposed to the other want us to see the war from the both side and have the idea for that.

You know, I'm Japanese.
My grandfather fought for the war in the time.
He was, I think, 18 years old, and he worked for navy.
He said he lost some of his friends in the war. So, I'm not totally a ignorant to the war.
But, I don't justify the war. I try to be neutral in this matter.
Therefore, I don't want you to misunderstand the meaning of what I wrote above.
I wrote that the filmmaker didn't want to decide which is bad or right in this movie.
I mean the filmmaker wouldn't conclude which is totally bad in this fight.

After the war is over, we are cooled down and can think which was bad in the war.
But, this is too broad. We can only think about the war as a country (countries) v.s. a country (countries.)
In the war, they all were full of stress with thinking when they would be killed.
Also, they fought not for themselves, such as the Emperor, country, and family.
We can blame countries which led to the wrong way, but we can never blame people who worked there.
I think this movie all emphasized on this part: soldiers who worked.


Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and the Pacific War began since that.
This is true and nobody cannot deny this.
However, no one could stop the war after it started.
The Japanese government manipulated people and they fought for the country.
At the time, they believed they are right and they had to fight for the Emperor, the country, and their family, otherwise Americans would invade them.
So, they had to fight.

A guy, Saigo, was not loyal as much as other Japanese soldiers. He had to follow the rules, so he played to be loyal when he faces commanders.
Saigo and Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe) showed us especially an important thing.

They are skeptical to the Japanese discipline of the war.
Saigo hopes to come back home with alive more than others.
Kuribayashi thinks it's wasteful to die by suicide, so he didn't admit his members to kill themselves.
At this time, many people killed themselves when they realized that they would be killed by Americans. They thought it's shameful to be killed by Americans.
Moreover, they gave three cheers every time for the Emperor before they kill themselves.

Now, people say the North Korean government is gone crazy, and they can't understand their behavior.
The government controls people and all information.
However, I think we should admit we had the same period which was only 65 years ago in Japan.
Japan is the second richest country by National GDP in the world now, and everybody has right to express their idea.
Only 65 years ago, however, we had none of them.
So the society rapidly changed.
The important thing is we should not think that we are different from people in countries having strict discipline that we can't even understand, such as that of North Korea and even China.

We should thank what we have achieved, and should think seriously about the problems of other countries.
We don't need to change the system of the countries which have strong rules in society. It needs a lot of efforts and also it's impossible only for us to change the country.
But, we can think back about the past and think seriously about the matter.
Once we acts like that, we won't say it's not our problem.