Monday, December 18, 2006

Flags of Our Fathers

A film which covers the turning point for the US in World War II where public support for the war was waning, cash was running low, and how the entire situation changed by a single picture... of soldiers putting up the American flag in Iwojima. Now I know it sounds like a propaganda movie, however it is actually quite an effective assessment of the complexity of war on the ground.

It also looks at the concept of heroism and how the hypocrisy is exposed when soldiers who were in the field are suddenly woven into the war-propaganda-machine. The film is highly critical of how war is sold to the public, the manipulation of emotions, the use of images, words and imagery, all to glorify and promote the good work the soldiers are doing "over there". It does shed light on the truth that there is nothing honorable in killing or being killed.

The acting is pretty good and so is the Directing (Clint Eastwood). The war scenes do look a little like Saving Private Ryan, but then again, it is produced by Steven Spielberg... so expect lotsa blood, lotsa CGI, but it all looks pretty real, nonetheless.

Overall, a good movie to watch albeit not so much for entertainment value than education value. I recommend this one :)

Peace,
M.

P.S. There is a sister movie "Letters from Iwo Jima", this will be out in 2007.

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4 comments:

otowi said...

Letters from Iwo Jima opens this Wednesday.

Muhammad said...

Cool... IMDB had it labelled 2007... so I just assumed :) Did you watch it? What'd you think?

otowi said...

No, I guess it comes out tomorrow but I think my mom will want to see some other movies.

otowi said...

Here's an interesting article about the Japanese watching Letters from Iwo Jima....
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1222/p11s02-almo.html