Last night my girlfriend and I drove to Manteca CA to see the opening of Flags of Our Fathers, Clint Eastwood's newest film. It is an amazing movie, and I recommend anyone who's old enough to go see it do so! It's a compelling story based on the book of the same name, following three of the six soldiers who raised the second flag over Iwo Jima. (The other three died while still on the island.) Everybody knows the famous picture.
It shows how the government tries to push them to be heroes, yet most of them disagree with being pulled from battle to sell bonds and pretend like they are something they aren't. You leave the movie with a real empathy for them, especially Ira Hayes. It's a true story about heroes. They get so built up and mythical in your head, and then you see their faults and in some ways it drops the legend, but only to make it all the more real. Kind of like the first time you realize your parents aren't superheroes.
My girlfriend is a survivor of years of war between Iraq and Iran, she lived in Baghdad the entire time. The movie starts out with someone saying something to the effect of, "People think they know so much about war, and it is usually the people who have never been". That was the first, and only time she laughed throughout the entire movie. It broke my heart to see the effect that a surround sound war gave to her, to the point of me telling her that we were going to just get up and go. But like a real trooper she insisted on staying, knowing that her "Habibi" wanted to see the movie.
By the end of the movie she, as well as many others in the theatre, were in tears. Thousands dead fighting for a hunk of rock 10 square miles. Three men ripped from their units to sell themselves for something they were, but didn't believe they deserved. Gore, Torture, Suicide, Panic.
One of the most powerful moments to me was a part where Ira Hayes is fighting cops in the street, holding them off with a chair from a nearby bar. One of the other characters, "Doc" runs up to him and talks him down, telling the cops to look at a nearby war effort picture saying, "Look see that person? That's him!" He asks Ira what happened, and Ira replies, "They wouldn't serve me." The stern faced bartender says, "I don't make the rules, we don't serve Indians." They then head off, with "Doc" glaring at the bartender with looks that could kill. Racism really gets to me.
After the movie, we watch the credits roll by as they are showing actual pictures of the battle/troops/ships etc. When we finally leave, we head up the stairs and there is one woman, in her mid 40's alone in the theatre, her face shimmering with tears. Something about that lady in the darkness, last row, alone in the darkness crying really got to me. We headed to get a drink, and I remembered at the beginning of the night my girlfriend pointing out the ticket where they had cut the name of the movie to fit the stub...."Flags of Our Fat".
3 comments:
I first heard about Ira Hayes when I was a kid watching The Outsider, starring Tony Curtis. I also remember hearing Johnny Cash sing The Ballad of Ira Hayes on the radio. His was a very sad story. Here's a website that has more about him.
Given my dislike of gore in movies, is this one that I should avoid? You know, I still haven't seen Saving Private Ryan because of the description you gave me of its opening minutes.
Here's something else you might find interesting, although you might want to turn the sound down.
Yeah it's definitely got more than it's fair share of gore. Even more so than Saving Private Ryan And unlike SPR, it's dispersed throughout the whole movie due to flash back/forward usage.
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