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BY A CORRESPONDENT
Flags of our Fathers, Clint Eastwood's epic on the
horror of war and its impact on its participants has
just hit the screens in India. On its opening day at
Mumbai's Metro Adlabs, the critically acclaimed movie
played just one show, and even that did not have even a
quarter of the seats filled. Salam-e-ishq was house-full
on the first day and so was Guru in its third week,
showing four times a day.
Flags Of Our Fathers narrates the war for Iwo Jima, one
of the bloodiest stages in the Pacific theatre of World
War-II. Controlled by Japan, the uninhabited volcanic
Island of Iwo Jima lay in a direct line between the US
and Japan. The Iwo Jima island served as an early
warning post to the Japanese, who would inform stations
in mainland Japan of approaching B-70 bombers from the
American side of the Pacific. In quick response, the
Japanese side would stack up the skies with airplanes so
high that the US planes would be either shot down or
forced to turn back. The American bombing raids met with
considerable failure due to Japanese presence in Iwo
Jima. Controlling the wasteland of Iwo Jima turned
super-critical for the US if it was to win the war in
the Pacific. The Japanese soldiers dug into the sulphur
sands and caves of Iwo Jima, determined to keep American
bombers off the mainland. The island was defended by
22,000 Japanese soldiers, burrowed into caves and nests.
After days of pounding from the air, the US battleships
finally disgorged their men and machines at the beaches
of Iwo Jima, beginning the invasion. Clint Eastwood's
Flags Of Our Fathers kicks off from here.
As the battleships - hundreds of them - near Iwo Jima,
we see the protagonists of the movie as ordinary Joes on
the ship, playing cards, joking and talking of things at
home. Clint Eastwood has deliberately kept the identity
of the three actors a bit confusing, and it is difficult
to tell who is who from the ship scenes.
The morning breaks with booming gunshots and in no time,
the soldiers find themselves in the fuming volcanic
beaches of Iwo Jima, which resembles an art movie
landscape with its deep greys, blues and blacks. There
is hardly a blade of grass in sight. The soldiers
advance, and there is no enemy in sight. It is almost as
if the Japanese have vanished from the island of Iwo
Jima.
All of a sudden, gunfire erupt from beneath bushes and
fortified machine-gun nests from the hillside. The
Japanese have dug into the hillside so well that none of
the imperialist fighters are visible to the advancing
marines, though the marines themselves are on the
crosshairs of hiding Japanese fighters.
Flags Of Our Fathers portrays the brutality of the war,
in a manner reminiscent of Saving Private Ryan. Steven
Spielberg, who directed Saving Private Ryan, was the
co-producer of Flags Of Our Fathers along with Clint
Eastwood. However unlike Private Ryan, Flags of Our
Fathers have no loveable heroes. In hand-to-hand
combats, grenade lobs and fire guns, the marines take on
the well-entrenched Japanese. However, the US is at a
major disadvantage since Iwo Jima's defenders have laid
the best traps for the marines to walk into.
The battle rages on in Iwo Jima. There are poignant
shots where Japanese lies dying next to a marine and
where a squad of marine searching a cave comes across
dead Japanese soldiers who have killed themselves rather
than surrendering to the enemy. Some marines are
kidnapped and tortured to death in caves. The battle for
Iwo Jima claimed 22,000 Japanese soldiers and 7000
American soldiers. The brutality and sacrifice of the
battle here can be assessed from the fact that of all
the World War II medals given out by the US, one-fourth
went to those who fought the Japanese in Iwo Jima.
On the fifth day of fighting in the battle for Iwo Jima,
Flags Of Our Fathers shows six men erecting the American
Flag on top of Mount Suribachi, which is clicked by Joe
Rosenthal, an Associated Press photographer, which
strikes a chord with the war-weary American public and
boosts their morale enough to part with their savings
for financing the War.
The Flag hoisted at Iwo Jima's tallest peak and clicked
by Joe Rosenthal was not the first American flag to be
there. The first flag was taken down the same day and
five marines and a navy corpsman were asked to put up
another one. This second flag-hoisting was captured and
immortalised by the AP photograph.
The Mount Suribachi flag raising and the events that
followed had a profound impact on the flag-raisers. In
Flags Of Our Fathers, Pima native American Indian Ira
Hayes, navy man John Bradley and Rene Gagnon raise the
Suribachi flag, along with three others. The others
don’t survive Iwo Jima, just like sprightly sergeant
Mike Strank, the leader of the boys.
Within weeks of raising the Flag at Iwo Jima, the three
young men who did it are flown back to the US. They are
pitch forked into the middle of a high-voltage
government-sponsored public relations campaign to raise
funds for the war effort. For bombs, bombers and machine
guns, the government needs to gather an additional 14
billion dollars. The "heroes" of Mount Suribachi are the
ideal candidates. Through the movie, all the three are
haunted by the knowledge that they are not heroes, but
mere puppets in the hands of the government. The real
heroes, they protest, died in the island. However, their
"minders" and the government are in no mood to listen.
The Rosenthal photograph has lifted the flagging spirits
of the nation, and time is ripe to milk $14 billion from
the public with some help from the Suribachi stars.
Bradley, Gagnon and Ira Hayes find themselves in the
middle of a war campaign tour to raise money. They are
made to attend fund-raising banquets and make fools of
themselves by running up a papier mache hill and plant a
flag there in a reconstruction of the events of Iwo Jima.
Huge crowds of patriotic Americans cheer, as flashes
from Iwo Jima run in their mind.
The war campaign successfully raises the money for the
ongoing war, which the Allies win. However, Iwo Jima's
threesome are shattered. They all feel guilty that they
survived when their colleagues did not. Bradley never
speaks a word about the War even to his family and
becomes a recluse. He hides from everyone the fact he
won a medal for it. In his nightmares, he still searches
for his friend "Iggy" who went missing in the Iwo Jima.
Even in his old age, Bradley wakes up in a cold sweat
with the chatter of gunfire from the sulphur island
still reverberating in his ears. Rene Gagnon manages to
take the adulation in his stride, to some extent.
Meanwhile, Hayes who leaves the services becomes a
drunken man, plods through life and goes into oblivion.
Of all actors in Flags of Our Fathers, Ira Hayes (played
by Adam Beach) is the most touching: throughout his
military career, he is the subject of racist barbs:
"Goddamn Indian!" says a military officer seeing him
drunk. Many of them call him "Chief," hinting at his
background. Another officer tries to make conversation
with him in his native language, which he can't make out
since he left the Reservation a long time ago. He is
hurt and humiliated when he is called a "hero", since he
believes that real heroes like Mark lie rotting in the
volcanic rock of Iwo Jima.
Flags of Our Fathers is several notches above other war
movies I have seen recently, because Clint Eastwood
conveys a larger message through his movie without being
preachy and self-important. It points to the
inevitability of combat, and the futility of war. There
are no heroes in war; only victims. It exposes the
cynicism of the Administration which uses its
traumatized soldiers in "national interest", even after
realizing that one of the characters in the photo was
not there when the American flag was raised at Mount
Suribachi.
Throughout the movie, Eastwood inter-cuts between the
present and the past. Scenes from Iwo Jima, the war
campaign tour and the present are mixed together, giving
the feel that the war is always under way. In the minds
of Iwo Jima's veterans, the war is never over - it
replays in their nightmares and haunts them till death.
FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS
Paramount Pictures
DreamWorks and Warner Bros. Pictures present a Malpaso
Prods./Amblin Entertainment production
Credits:
Director: Clint Eastwood
Screenwriters: William Broyles Jr., Paul Haggis
Based on the book by: James Bradley with Ron Powers
Producers: Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg, Robert
Lorenz
Director of photography: Tom Stern
Production designer: Henry Bumstead
Music: Clint Eastwood
Co-producer: Tim Moore
Costume designer: Deborah Hopper
Editor: Joel Cox
Cast:
John Bradley: Ryan Phillippe
Rene Gagnon: Jesse Bradford
Ira Hayes: Adam Beach
Keyes Beech: John Benjamin Hickey
Bud Gerber: John Slattery
Mike Strank: Barry Pepper
Ralph Ignatowski: Jamie Bell
Hank Hansen: Paul Walker
Running time -- 132 minutes
MPAA rating: R
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