Review: Flags of Our Fathers

Yesterday I watched the Clint Eastwood directed film Flags of our Fathers which focuses on the story behind the famous photograph of American soldiers putting up an American flag during the Battle of Iwo Jima during World War II. It takes a look at what happened to the soldiers who were in the original picture and intermixes with flashbacks of the actual events at the Battle of Iwo Jima.

I enjoyed this film as it had a bit of everything in it. It wasn’t entirely based on what you see in the front lines of the war, but took a look at what happened behind the scenes. For example, the famous photo was used as propaganda to get more money coming in (via bonds) to finance the war. They brought back the soldiers who were in the picture to go on a tour to encourage citizens to buy bonds. The film focuses around this tour and the personal hell that some of the soldiers are going through. Flags of our Fathers is also based on a novel by James Bradley who talks about not knowing his father’s involvement in the war and it turns out that he is one of the soldiers in the famous photograph.

If you look at the film chronologically, it shows the Battle of Iwo Jima, then the subsequent tour of the fellows in the famous photograph, then the interviews of soldiers by James Bradley trying to find out more about his father during the war as his own father never really spoke about it.

It was a touching tale when it got to the parts where the son is piecing together what sort of man his father really was and never realized until he was on his death bed. I enjoyed the film showing the other side of war and how a single photograph became a driving force behind a funding mechanism for the war.

Recommended.

Of note is the fact that Clint Eastwood filmed a companion film called Letters from Iwo Jima which looks at the Japanese viewpoint.