After
Million Dollar Baby won Clint Eastwood the Academy Award for best picture, one expects nothing but the best from the 76-year-old director. And Eastwood doesn't disappoint.
Flags of Our Fathers takes up from where
Saving Private Ryan left off, putting the spotlight on the ironies of 'war for peace' and the impact of bloody coups on both the winners and the losers.
The film hinges on one particular photograph, which moved a nation and its people. The war in question is the Second World War's Battle of Iwo Jima and the photograph is the February 23, 1945 image 'Raising the Flag at Iwo Jima' of five US Marines and a Navy Corpsman raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi, snapped by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal.
Based on a book by James Bradley and Ron Powers,
Flags of Our Fathers revolves around the war and post-war lives of John 'Doc' Bradley (Ryan Phillippe), Rene Gagnon (Jesse Bradford) and Ira Hayes (Adam Beach), three of the soldiers in the photograph who helped overturn anti-war sentiments and loosen the purse strings of Americans during the Seventh War Bond Tour. Not only do the three battle the trauma of war, but also their sudden fame and their demons. The battle killed as many as 21,000 Japanese and 6,800 Americans. The three men are given the unenviable task of hiding their fellow soldiers' sufferings to present a rosy picture of the bloody battle.
To heighten the brutality of war, Eastwood has masterfully shot some of sequences in sepia tones and even used footage from the actual war in the film. Even though the brutality of the war shocks you, it doesn't shock as much as the brutal and humiliating manipulation of Bradley, Gagnon and Hayes. It's unnerving to see the ruthless gimmickry behind the efforts to sell war bonds to raise money for the army. Given the political climate in the United States, the film forces you to draw parallels between the Battle of Iwo Jima and the Iraq war.
The degeneration of the three flag-raisers is what the film is basically about. James Bradley happens to be the son of John Bradley and his account is handled with a sensitivity that only a son can give his father's biography. Ryan Phillippe does full justice to the Navy Corpsman's role, communicating the introverted soldier's white noise effectively. Bradford, as Gagnon, revels in his newfound fame but is left bitter and cynical once his celebrity status fades away. Perhaps the most intriguing character of the film is Hayes, played by Adam Beach. The Native American cannot enjoy his celebrity as easily as his two colleagues and uneasy lies his head. Later, when the presses stop rolling and the war is over, Hayes descends into guilt-ridden depression, seeking solace in alcohol. In real life, the man died at 32, after years of survivor guilt and numerous attempts to lead a life of anonymity. The three men's failure to appreciate the massive feat that they achieved shines through the film, even as Eastwood tries not to take sides.
According to the
Mystic River director,
Flags of Our Fathers will be followed by another film, which will explore the impact of the war on the Japanese side.
The film hits hard and fast. Though recommended, it will spark off thinking, which we all know isn't the best way to bliss.
