28th November, 2006

DAVID ADAMS

Flags of Our Fathers (MA)

IMAGE OF THEIR TIMES: A recreation of the "single shot that could end the war". "A film which takes a good hard look at the process of mythmaking and our need for heroes, Flags Of Our Fathers is a moving portrayal of the often grubby realities of war and its aftermath."

OK, ok. I know it’s very late in its run, but I managed to catch it before it disappeared from the screens of our local cinema multiplex, so maybe you will too. It’s certainly worth trying. Directed by Clint Eastwood, Flags Of Our Fathers is the story behind of one of the images that defined World War II - a Pulitzer Prize winning image of five marines and a navy corpsman raising a flag on top of Mt Suribachi on the island of Iwo Jima during a battle for the island that began on 16th February, 1945. At a time when the war in the Pacific was ever so slowly edging towards its endgame, the image taken at Iwo Jima was seized upon by officials in the US administration as one means of bolstering support for the ongoing war effort - in particular for raising much needed cash to keep the US war machine afloat. Based on a best-selling book by James Bradley (the son of John "Doc" Bradley, the navy corpsman in the image) and Ron Powers, Eastwood’s film centres on three main characters - Bradley ,played by Ryan Phillippe, Rene Gagnon, a “runner” played by Jesse Bradford, and Ira Hayes, an American Indian played by Adam Beach - who were among those who took part in the flag raising (and the only three to survive the war). It sets about debunking some of the big picture myths of the image by looking at the truth about the circumstances in which it was taken (the flag, which was actually raised on the fifth of 31 days of fighting, was the second US flag to be raised on top of the rocky mount ) as questions were raised about whether the image was staged. It also looks into the lives of the “American heroes” who were depicted within it (even the identity of one of the men was the subject of some dispute) and their personal struggles in handling the attention they received back home before fading from the limelight. Framed by James Bradley’s own search to find out about the image his father was depicted in, the movie jumps between their role in the invasion of Iwo Jima and their subsequent role in the nation’s propaganda machinery as they toured the US in a series of public appearances aimed at raising funds for the war. Treading on ground broken by Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-winning Saving Private Ryan, the film’s portrayal of war is visceral and gives an insight into the confusion and the horror soldiers must have experienced (more than 20,000 Japanese lives and almost 7,000 American lives were lost during the battle for the island). A film which takes a good hard look at the process of mythmaking and our need for heroes, Flags Of Our Fathers is a moving portrayal of the often grubby realities of war and its aftermath. Keep an eye out for upcoming the Japanese language “companion piece”, Letters From Iwo Jima, in which the battle is told from the Japanese side of the story.

~ FlagsofourFathers.com

SEE THE SIGHT ON THE SCREEN ARCHIVES FOR MORE...