Letters From Iwo Jima

I have not seen the movie and , to tell the truth, have only vaguely heard something about it being made, I didn't know it was released. I haven't even seen a commercial for it. I'm glad I came across this commentary, though, I would like to see it.

Misunderstanding Iwo Jima

In a second scene, with the battle all but over, another platoon surrounds Saigo. Deranged by grief, he attacks the platoon with a shovel. Instead of shooting him, as the soldiers have every right to do, they disable him with the butt of a rifle.

The final scene, a telling one, finds a smiling Saigo lying on a stretcher at the edge of the beach amidst a row of identical stretchers bearing Americans. He has found a place among a people who respect his humanity just as they do their own.

"It is Eastwood's queasy triumph," writes Scott Foundas of the Village Voice, "that, when we hear those words, ['Do what's right ...'] regardless of what language we speak, they have rarely sounded more foreign."

As Foundas' churlish little remark makes clear, these critics fail to understand "Letters from Iwo Jima" because they fail to understand America.