Flags of Our Fathers — movie review — screener!
Everyday we are sheltered from the truth. On the news, in history books, by our peers and parents. We are forced to believe that War is inevitable. War is unpreventable. War ultimately saves lives. The topic is so saturated with deceit that the proletariat always accelerates acclimation. It is because it is exactly what we want to hear.
If you knew the truth, if you knew about the unfair WWII treatises drafted specifically to insult Japanese honor and inflict retaliation, if you knew about the firebombing raids, if you knew that the atomic bombs were dropped after peace negotiations and after Nazi Germany had surrendered, would it make any difference? Even those that are aware shake their heads and wag their fingers at the Japanese, regurgitating slander and boohooing over the Rape of Nanking. The Jewish even sued the Smithsonian museum over the term “concentration camp” in a Japanese history display, revering their own tragedy over someone elses. (This is especially strange if you consider the claim that half of the alleged six million Holocaust victims weren’t even Jewish, but Polish Christians and Catholics, not to mention the total number of victims may be a gross overestimate).
If you want the truth, you would quickly learn that America has murdered more innocent civilians that any other country on the planet. And the killing meter increases every day. In fact, a recent study was published in major newspapers last week, claiming the American military took 655,000 Iraqi lives and not 30,000 like President Bush had previously announced. And that doesn’t even take into account those innocents who were brutalized, sodomized and tortured by American soldiers. Not to mention soldiers raped by fellow soldiers. So you just rethink your image of a hero, because he may just be someone who survived. Much like Rene Gagnon (Jesse Bradford), a runner for the Marines, famous for helping his buddies lift up a flagpole.
This photograph at the Battle of Iwo Jima, this instant image of hope and pride and camaraderie was printed on every major newspaper’s front page and engraved on every U.S. citizen’s heart. It was an image to remind families, taxpayers, politicians that War is necessary. It was a trigger to trick them all into believing that we were winning. The fact is that we were losing, horribly losing, and America is a sore loser. You understand that we usually blindly bulldoze and bully other countries. But in the midst of WWII, America lacked the money, the resources, the strategy. Thus the vicious cycle began. Without strategy, you lose a lot of troops and eat up a lot of artillery. You need material resources for more artillery. You need more money to start the whole cycle again. So the government devised a plan to tap its citizens dry. War bonds were purchased under the premise of contribution, of supporting soldiers, of possibly eliminating the guilt of sitting at home while young men lost their lives overseas. War bonds are why the remaining (living) three out of the six Iwo Jima flag raisers were quickly shipped back home. They were to become the new spokesmen for military funding and the unexpected heroes of WWII.
Spotlights and flashbulbs induced flashbacks, and the legacy of war split through the young soldiers’ minds. Napalm flamethrowers, grenade decapitations, embedded shrapnel. Charismatic Rene Gagnon (mentioned earlier), brave medic John “Doc” Bradley (Ryan Phillippe), compassionate Ira Hayes (Adam Beach) each dealt with their visions differently, each dealing with the lies they needed to tell the public. They were to cover up the fact that the flag they raised was only a replacement and that one man had been incorrectly credited.
Hayes plays an important role in Flags of Our Fathers because he is a Native American and this is where director Clint Eastwood drills in the message that white people suck. At any rate, you’ll need to remember him. Maybe you’ll remember him in that soft-focus movie light, just like the veil he held over his own eyes when he believed in America and that his part in the war would deter future prejudice. You may remember him portrayed as a stereotype chain, being a blubbering alcoholic gambling ace. You could remember him in the broader sense, representing all Native Americans; their genocide adding millions of deaths to America’s killing meter. Maybe this is why Hayes feared fame. He realized that he was a marked martyr for hope and freedom, only to have his own dreams cruelly drowned. So Flags of Our Fathers also reflects on how crass and racist people can be, even directly to a hero’s face. How we amass and treat each other without empathy, without respect, and this is how we wage wars. In the long run, there is very little difference in how everyday feuds and global wars begin, and more often than not, the victor is not always virtuous.
Flags of Our Fathers opens on October 20, 2006.
Learn that there are two sides to every story. This time, you’ll get to hear the Japanese side on February 9, 2007, when Clint Eastwood’s Letters from Iwo Jima opens.
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