Ray Pride

Spare, melancholy, steely, fearful, Clint Eastwood's "Letters from Iwo Jima" is the first great release of 2007. An old man makes another movie about young men being sent to war for old men's valor: after "Flags of Our Fathers," Eastwood works from the Japanese perspective at Iwo Jima, in Japanese. Soldiers huddle in caves, awaiting certain death, beneath the surface of the black sulphur island that is bombarded in the American attack, as shown in the earlier film. The look is stripped down, even for Eastwood, even for his recently passed 91-year-old production designer Henry Bumstead. Shadows are sharper than the figures that cast them. The visual reserve and supernal calm are worthy of Kurosawa, of Tarkovsky. A few lines of dialogue are Beckett-absurd; along a beach, men dig trenches that they may well die in. As the general brought to toll the final battle, Ken Watanabe is his sage, serious, handsome, worldly best, and the other faces are beautifully cast. Consider a moment when he pauses while drawing a sake cup topped with Johnny Walker to his lips. He pauses. It is a beautiful pause, adroitly measured. Without words, the screen floods with grace and sorrow. "Letters from Iwo Jima" brims with grace and sorrow. 141m. Anamorphic widescreen.

"Letters From Iwo Jima" opens Friday at Landmark Century.

(2007-01-09)

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