February 2007

Talking About Movies: War Movies: Looking at Both Sides

By Frank Beaver

I found Clint Eastwood's "Letters from Iwo Jima" to be a very moving and important film. It treats the Japanese soldier characters—the enemy—as fully dimensioned human beings with the same emotions, needs and soldierly qualities that we associate with "our own men" in war movies. In Eastwood's earlier Iwo Jima film, "Flags of Our Fathers," the Japanese were nothing more than deadly background shadows; in the second treatment they are flesh and blood and we are made to care about them—deeply care.

Ken Watanabe's performance as the general in command of the Japanese is as touching a portrayal of a dedicated military leader as any I can remember. He longs for his family—feelings expressed in letters and pencil drawings of domestic scenes of home life. He is depicted as a humanitarian who respects his enlisted soldiers and intervenes to protect them when they are mistreated by lesser officers. All the principal characters are equally well-drawn, sympathetic and thinking individuals who are facing their destiny. The film helps to move our view of war beyond mythic "us versus them" heroics toward a family-of-man view that portrays war as universally tragic.

"Letters from Iwo Jima" caused me to reflect on films about the more recent Vietnam War and the treatment of the "other side." Two American films came to mind, each of which has sought to humanize Vietnamese who were caught up in a war which they refer to as the American war. One is a dramatic feature-film, "We Were Soldiers" (2002), and the other is a very personal documentary, "Regret to Inform" (1998).

"We Were Soldiers" is a screen adaptation of the book "We Were Soldiers Once…And Young" by Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Hal Moore and journalist Joseph Galloway. Its story is that of the Battle of Ia Drang in 1965, an early confrontation between American forces and the North Vietnamese Army (NVA). Moore commanded the air cavalry unit of the US lst Battalion, 7th Cavalry; the film is a dramatization of Moore's courageous leadership during the Ia Drang battle.

The treatment of the battle employs a parallel development technique, cutting back and forth between the American point of view of the action and the point of view of the NVA soldiers. Adding balance to the development of Moore's bravery is the parallel development of a young NVA officer whose characterization is one of an individual equally brave and efficient. The film is careful to show that he, like Moore, has also left behind a cherished family. Furthermore, the script even goes into the battle strategies of the NVA as well as those of the Americans. The result is a film which, while for the most part a war action movie, pays due respect to both sides in the battle.
 
"Regret to Inform" is a 70-minute documentary made by Barbara Sonnenborn, a woman whose first husband, Jeff, was killed in Vietnam. Her "regret to inform" letter reached her on her 24th birthday. Sonnenborn, who describes herself as now "happily remarried," nevertheless decides in 1998 to go to Vietnam to meet with Vietnamese women, on both sides of the war, who also received "regret to inform" letters. She also plans to visit the spot where her husband died. Sonnenborn takes with her as an interpreter a Vietnamese woman who was a prostitute during the war and who married and moved to America. This woman's story is intercut with interviews with Vietnamese war widows, all of whom recall the devastating effect that their losses had on their lives. When Sonnenborn reaches the site of her husband's death, she is surprised to see that it is a tranquil, idyllic looking place. A further irony occurs when she discovers that her "guide" was a female soldier in the local guerrilla band that fought against the South Vietnamese and American forces. This woman may have even been a part of the unit that killed Sonnenborn's husband. Without any animosity, the two women light incense as a shared act of hope for peace and freedom from war.

"Regret to Inform" expands our sense of war's universal impact, not just because it treats both sides, but because it brings family and those left behind into the picture. Sonnenborn's film is so touching because it reveals just how long and how deeply the memories of war can linger and haunt.    

Film historian and critic Frank Beaver is professor of film and video studies and professor of communication.