thwarted heroism

I have always been biased about war movies. Even when someone commented that Thin Red Line is sooo boring, I still found beauty in the traquil moments of the film or when somebody said that Black Hawk Down was too noisy and all combat, I still made sense out of it.

Clint Eastwood's Flags of our Fathers is yet another take on the subject of war - particularly World War II. The battleground is Iwo Jima, Japan and the centerpiece where the story pretty much revolved was the flag-raising ceremony of the American soldiers who fought in that island. The famous photograph was taken by Associate Press photgrapher Joe Rosenthal.

Known for his achingly melodramatic pieces (Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby), Eastwood's Flags makes war a tragedy more tragic. (How can anything be more tragic than war?). The film achieves more because it presents all aspects of war - apathy and heroism, victory and loss. Flags will be complemented by Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima, which will be in Japanese. This time the war is told in the perspective of the Japanese.

Pronounced as heroes, the three of flag raisers who lived came home to their country enmeshed in a politically sticky and uncomfortable situation - none than they ever thought of. For Rene Gagnon (Jesse Bradford), his sudden rose to fame made every encounter with the media an opportune time. On the other hand, the war ruined Ira Hayes' life (Adam Beach). He cannot escape the trauma and the images of war remained vivid in his memories.

The war, as they say always break our hearts, and Eastwood dramatizes this perfectly in every solemn scene particularly in one scene where the soldiers - some listened, some hummed - to the song playing in the old radio 'I Walk Alone'. War comes at a big price - loss of lives, the uncertainty of victory, but here in the film it's much more of loss of the innocence of youth. It probes into America's exploitation of war heroes - and making a grand spectacle out of war.

The film is also visually stunning. The battle scenes are awashed in grayscale effect and blood, strikingly red, is the only other color visible in the scenes. There's pretty much gorefest here so it's not really for the weak stomach: bullets piercing through heads, shrapnels piercing through flesh, decapitation, disemboweled viscera - there's even this one scene that aptly described the horrors war wherein the body was not made visible through the screen, but the expression on Philippe's face said it all.

War is not all about victory, as the film pointed out - it's everything unspeakable and heartbreaking. As in Bradley's (Ryan Philippe) words, "So much for no man left behind".