rated R 

Clint Eastwood’s “Letters From Iwo Jima” is a thoughtful, intimate portrait of a handful of Japanese soldiers about to enter a losing battle in the last year of World War II.

The film has little pretense and is not inflated with its own sense of importance, but it is powerful in many ways, up to and including the place it may hold in the long, great pantheon of films dealing with World War II.

I suspect a great deal of the adulation for it has to do with the fact that Eastwood entered into filmmaking maturity so late in life, and that this is his second release within the last year. He is now in his mid-70s, and although his recent movies—“Mystic River” and “Million Dollar Baby”—have the resonance of a true aesthetic sensibility, it’s easy to forget that Eastwood’s journey to this point has been long and hard and full of mistakes and outright fiascos. There is a string of very iffy efforts, such as “Bird” or “White Hunter, Black Heart” or “Blood Work,” for every triumph.

The public affection for this film, I suspect, may also have to do with the fact that Eastwood has undoubtedly delivered the last cinematic word on the greatest generation, and he has performed this job with real sensitivity. There is nothing crass or vulgar in “Letters From Iwo Jima,” and, as is his style, Eastwood does not pass judgment on the characters here. He lets their lives play out in front of us, and we will judge them as we will. This is exactly the kind of pared back, small-scale picture that Eastwood has become so adept at handling.

There is no real story or plot. We are steered through the five days of battle, and we follow the journeys of a few of these Japanese men. This path sometimes leads us to the end of their lives. It is as simple and meaningful as that.
The film opens with a present-day expedition to the small, black island of Iwo Jima, which was of strategic importance to both sides in the second World War. The group uncovers something in the dirt, but before we find out what it is, the story very quickly shifts to 1944.

On a sun-drenched Pacific day, Japanese soldiers, tired, hungry, sick and dirty, are preparing for the American invasion. Almost all of the soldiers and officers are quite aware certain death awaits them. They are underfed and outgunned, and word comes from headquarters there will be no aerial or military support of any kind to help them fight the Americans. There is despair and a sense of futility, and we feel it, too.

On the lifeless beach, Saigo (Kazunari Ninomiya) is digging a ditch and complaining about it. He was a baker in civilian life, and he has yet to meet his newborn daughter. Eastwood gently reminds us that wars are fought mostly by people who had no intention of becoming warriors of any kind. Saigo is our hapless guide during the battle—it is seen through his eyes—and he experiences everything one imagines war to be like: from outright monotony to unforgiving terror.

Overseeing the military operation on the island is General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, whose actual letters helped form the basis of this story. Kuribayashi is played by Ken Watanabe (Oscar-nominated for “The Last Samurai”), and his humanity comes right through the screen. Watanabe shows the nobility of a soldier and the compassion of a man. This is the kind of performance that makes you marvel at the craft of acting. But it is more than that, too. Kuribayashi seems to be the creation of an empathetic soul, and Watanabe imbues the simple act of writing a letter home with great sadness, the despair visible in his eyes as the Japanese cause becomes more untenable. It’s a magnificent performance.

Although 20,000 Japanese soldiers were posted on the island during the taking of Iwo Jima, Eastwood does not focus on the operation itself. The battle is almost always heard off-screen—the pop-pop-pop of mortar fire or the insidious rat-a-tat of machine guns form the backbeat to quiet conversation. The few battle scenes Eastwood does stage are intimate and frightening. We meet exactly three American soldiers: two are faceless thugs, and the other is a young man from Oklahoma. He is Saigo’s counterpart, just a kid sent to do a job he probably never wanted but took because he was a decent, respectful person.

The film was photographed in a metallic sheen by Tom Stern, a longtime technician for Eastwood, and in some scenes the color is so washed out it looks black and white, like an old color photograph left out in the sun. There are some remarkable shots in the film, though. Many of the images are half-hidden in shadow: not just faces but also guns and other equipment. It’s unsettling because it’s so much easier to become off-balance when you can’t see something clearly, and in the mayhem of battle one would think that almost nothing would be clearly seen.

“Letters From Iwo Jima” was written by Paul Haggis (“Million Dollar Baby” and “Crash”), and translated into Japanese by Iris Yamashita. The screenplay is without adornment, for the most part—it’s just conversation—but there were a couple of moments when it veered into the mystical (Kuribayashi saves Saigo’s life twice and intones solemnly that “everything happens in threes”). There is some voiceover during which the contents of letters being written back home are read, and there are a few flashbacks. The scenes themselves are brief and give us just enough back story on the character to make us appreciate their current predicament even more.

World War II was, of course, the back story of the last half of the 20th century. But now, with new terrors and new wars to be fought, and with those who lived during that time growing very old, this old war is fading from memory. It seems to belong to a time wholly unlike our own. “Letters From Iwo Jima” is Eastwood’s last, gentle letter to the men and women who fought then—and indeed who fight in all wars—and it may be our last public missive to them, too.

Goodbye, Clint Eastwood is saying. We’re doing our best not to forget.