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Letters from Iwo Jima. Motion picture produced and directed by Clint Eastwood, 2006. Warner Bros, and Dreamworks Picture, in Japanese with English subtitles. Story and screenplay by Iris Yamashita.
So Sad to Fall in Battle: An Account of War Based on General Tadamichi Kuribayashi's Letters from Iwo Jima. By Kumiko Kakehashi. New York: Ballantine Books, 2007. ISBN 0-89141-903-7. Map. Photographs. Illustrations. Pp. xxv, 211. #24.95.
War movies are extremely difficult to make because directors must compress chronologies, simplify complex issues, and focus on heroic or tragic personalities to present a comprehensible narrative to the audience. Letters From Iwo Jima displays all those characteristics yet is a very good war movie. The portrayal of Lt. Gen. Kurabayashi Tadamichi is mostly faithful to the man. He did walk the island on daily circuits, sometimes even twice a day, to inspect defensive preparations and the state of his troops. He did order officers and men to share the same rations, highly unusual in the rankconscious Japanese army. Kurabayashi's other persona, the strict disciplinarian, stickler for military courtesies (work details excepted), and micromanager who demanded instantaneous execution of his orders, did not make the screen.