Dr Jacques COULARDEAU This film concerns the last real fierce emblematic battle (February 19, 1945 - March 26, 1945) between the USA and Japan, the battle for the island of Iwo Jima. The war is coming to an end and after this battle, it will drag on with Japan retreating little by little and this will only be stopped once and for all with the atom bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At the end of this battle, the federal government of the USA is unable to finance the end of the war and they use this battle, this victory as the tool they need to launch a final battle in the USA to raise the money necessary to finish the job. But when this battle is finished, won the main actor of this war, Franklin D. Roosevelt dies within weeks on April 12, 1945, and Truman takes over. He is the one who decided to drop the atom bombs in Japan, though of course, Roosevelt is the one who had launched the research and financed the production of these bombs, little boy as the first one was called. Dramatic event that required the levying of millions if not billions of dollars to pay for the next six months of the war. This first film - that has to be twinned with Letters from Iwo Jima - is the battle seen from the American point of view and what's more from the recollections the son of one of the GIs who raised the flag there managed to collect from his father before his death, and the father expressed in his last weeks or months of life the great distance he had taken with this war and this battle. The film shows with all the horror and bloody cruelty you can imagine this battle and how the GIs reacted and survived because that's the master word here: The Gis did all they could to survive and avoid the bullets. Their choice was simple: go through the showering bullets, remain alive, and kill as many people on the other side. Prisoners were not even a question. Then the film shows how three surviving soldiers who raised the flag are enrolled in a campaign across the USA to raise money, including by the reenactment of the raising of the flag. But it is all built on a fake picture. The first raising of the flag was not taken by the photographer following the armed forces, a GI himself, because he was not thre at the time. He only took the "second raising" but in the meantime, one of the four Gis who did it was dead or gone and he was replaced by a second fourth one who will die soon after. The picture that was sent around in the press and the media all over the world cheated then on the identity of this fourth soldier. And both fourth soldiers dying soon after and not being there anymore to testify, two mothers, two families were suffering from the ambiguity. The truth came from one of the three survivors, the Indian GI, who later on, after the war, leaked the truth to the press. The fact that remains is that the federal state and the American political apparatus used this picture and this event for years with even the erecting of a monument representing this particular event. What is important in such situation? The real truth or the dynamism that the official but false truth creates? The reality is that very often the hypocritical truth is the one that works in the media, most of the time because the media do not know it is fake. And today some speak of fake news!The three survivors will have very different careers after the war. The Indian will die officially from exposure sometime after the inauguration of the official commemorative monument, without an autopsy, meaning that an Indian is an Indian and his being a national hero does not count: he is still refused a drink in a bar that does not serve Indians, even when the whole city around the bar is celebrating on this very evening the three survivors and the raising of the flag in a monstrous event in some stadium. The next GI will never get a decent job, nor decent training or education, and he will be a janitor all his life. The last one will have the opportunity to buy a funeral parlor and will prosper as a mortician and he is the one whose son is collecting the last memories.The general idea is that if heroes there are they are all dead: the heroes are those who died in the battle. The survivors were just die-hard lucky survivors who managed to run through a torrentuous shower of projectiles of all sorts and did not get wet at all. Dry till the end, or maybe one or two drops, one or two wounds, but nothing serious enough to put you six feet under. In 2006 the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were getting clogged up in a quagmire and Clint Eastwood and Steven Spielberg had the courage to tell the wide audience that a war is never anything clean, heroic and that it is essentially a cruel game played by people far away from the front who will use the survivors to reach their objectives provided these survivors do NOT, absolutely NOT, question the basic principles of the society whose elite the war-players at home are, namely segregation and class distinctions, not to mention racism and racial distinctions. Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU

zkonedog The story of the flag-raisers of Iwo Jima is a fascinating one. From the perhaps not-so-common knowledge that the picture was actually of the second flag raised on the mountain, to the misrepresentation of those even in the picture, it is a narrative filled with drama and human interest. Director Clint Eastwood is the perfect figure to tackle such a project, and he does so with his usual aplomb (aside from perhaps a few narrative structure hiccups).For a basic plot summary, "Flags Of Our Fathers" tells the story of that famous picture taken of the American flag being hoisted atop Mt. Suribachi during the battle for Iwo Jima. The film many focuses on John "Doc" Bradley (Ryan Phillippe), Rene Gagnon (Jesse Bradford), & Ira Hayes (Adam Beach), three of the flag-raisers who survived the war and were recruited by the military to tell their story and be hailed as heroes to drum up sales for war bonds. Initially, the three men seem quite uncomfortable in this role, and as the story progresses (filled with flashbacks to the Iwo Jima battle itself) we learn why: Not only was the famous picture taken of the "second flag", but there is even an error regarding which men are in the picture. The military pushes the rhetoric over the truth in order to "sell, sell, sell" those war bonds, and the three men must deal with those repercussions.First and foremost, "Flags of our Fathers" is a great movie because it has a great story to tell. Most Americans can identify that iconic flag-raising photo, but many did not know the interesting story behind it. All movies succeed/fail primarily by the strength of the story, and it is in this category where "Flags" shines the brightest. One can see their own parents or grandparents (who may have participated in WW2) through the lens of these characters, and even extrapolate upon themes of military deception or obfuscation of the truth. Fortunately, Eastwood is always very good at keeping things grounded and practical instead of "rah rah" political, so this isn't a preachy film by any means. It lays out the story and lets the viewer make their own conclusions.Supporting that fine story is some great acting all the way around. The three leads are spot-on, while the auxiliary cast features such strong performers as: John Slattery, Barry Pepper, Paul Walker, Robert Patrick, & Neil McDonough. Simply put, acting isn't a problem in this film (!).About the only reason I can't give this picture the full five stars is because of Eastwood's rather odd choice of telling the narrative in such a disjointed fashion. Parts are flashbacks, parts are narrated by a researcher interviewing the aged veterans of Iwo Jima, and even the "real time" action can jump forward or back in time with little to no warning. To me, this led to a rather disjointed experience in trying to follow the overall narrative. It seemed like every time I would get comfortable in what time/place was being presented in the scene, it would jump to another just as quick. Luckily, Eastwood is a good enough director to still "make it work", but his other films usually take a more straightforward, direct approach.Overall, though, "Flags of our Fathers" is a great film filled with wartime action, human interest, and a story that will last down through the generations. It may lack the utter gravitas of the earlier "Saving Private Ryan", but it tells an equally (if not even more) compelling story. The telling of that story may be a bit fractured, but the sum of the parts is quite a moving, emotional experience.

SnoopyStyle In 1945, the picture of the flag raising on Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima becomes an immediate icon. The six soldiers in the picture become instant celebrity heroes. Three of them are brought back to the states to sell Bonds. Corpsman John 'Doc' Bradley (Ryan Phillippe) continues to be haunted for the rest of his life. He and others Rene Gagnon (Jesse Bradford), Hank Hansen (Paul Walker), Mike Strank (Barry Pepper), Ira Hayes (Adam Beach) and Franklin Sousley (Joseph Cross) train together and sent into Iwo Jima. They are led by Captain Severance (Neal McDonough). Rene Gagnon tells the brass that Ira Hayes was one of the flag raiser which truly angers him and which he denies. Keyes Beech (John Benjamin Hickey) and Bud Gerber (John Slattery) push the tour selling the picture and War Bonds. There is confusion about the two flags and controversy over who the true people in the picture. It's a darker compelling telling of the battle and its aftermath. It starts moody and even the battle isn't as heroic as expected. A man falls overboard and no ship stops to save him. The battle is ugly and bloody. There is a greyness to the battle that makes it almost black and white. The confusion adds depth to the characters and the reactions add substance. The fascinating thing about this is that their odyssey doesn't end after the battle. This is also a movie about the human condition. Adam Beach is especially good in a juicy role struggling with guilt and pride.

Sergeant_Tibbs The companion picture to the more acclaimed Letters From Iwo Jima is certainly the weaker of the pair. This side of the story isn't as interesting, though it has its moments. There's no doubt that it has great production, merging design with special effects seamlessly and hitting an astonishing scale. It mixes well with the saturated cinematography, but you can't help that it feels far too derivative of Saving Private Ryan's gruelling opening act, surely caused by perhaps the revisionist influence of producer Steven Spielberg. However, the real problem is that it struggles to find eyes to see the story through. Not choosing a protagonist isn't necessarily a bad thing, as it's been done well in The Thin Red Line, Black Hawk Down and Band of Brothers, but Flags Of Our Fathers is such a mish-mash of one dimensional characters that it ends up hard to follow. Given that creative choice, the nonlinear narrative was a mistake, leaving the film to meander to its point about heroism in war. It's a good point, but one in a grey area and doesn't seem to flesh out the iconic picture as much as it wants to. I should revisit Letters From Iwo Jima but I know it won't be a pleasant experience.6/10