I think the reason why many people prefers Letters from Iwo Jima was because of the way Flags of our Fathers kept jumping around in time periods. This style, normally doesn't sit well with audiences. One of my all time favorite movies is American Grafitti but the sequel jumped back and forth over a 4 year time period. I still enjoyed the sequel but the majority of audiences didn't, citing what I just said as the biggest reason. I guess you have to grab an audience and hold them but jumping around, confuses people. Still, IMHO, I liked Flags slightly better than Letters. It told the story of the sacrifices in battle but also what they went through at home. I detested Ira constantly called "Chief" and the way he was treated, like the scene where they wouldn't serve him at a bar. And if that scene with General Vandergrift (pardon the spelling if it is wrong) is accurate, this was not a wise decision to want to get rid of Ira. They were on the bond drive because, like they said in the movie, the country was flat broke. The amount of money these 3 helped raise was incredible so you think the press wouldn't find out why Ira was no longer on the tour? And the press, as usual, put getting the truth over who raised the flag first, over this country!
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tsw453
10 years ago
I really don't know if there is a good answer as to why people like Letters more. I have seen Letters 3 times now and have not gotten through Flags. I think one reason is that no one ever makes a film showing the other side and it was just fascinating! Is there any movies that showcase the German side of WWII like this? I may try Flags again but The Pacific seems to be better to watch in it's place.
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Nexus71
9 years ago
not exactly the same but there are some;
In English we have;'
The Cross Of Iron(East-front after the defeat at Stalingrad)
Conspiracy(how the descision was made about "the final solution")
Valkery (the plot to kill Hitler)
Schindler's List (about the concentration camps albeit from the perspective of the Jews and a German buisnessman)
And in German we have;
Das Boot(about the U-boat war)
Der Üntergang (the last Days of Hitler)
Stalingrad (the city wich led to the demise of nazi-Germany)
the German parts of The Longest Day (about D-day)
Also interesting is the war from the perspective of the civilians;
Heimat-Eine Deutsche Chronik (we follow the lives of a family in a small German village throughout the course of a 30+ year period)
a wonderful series by Edgar Reitz wich has three sequels but this part specificly deals with Germany from the end of W.W. I to the 1950's.
Most films usually don't get financed so easy if you have a script wich solely deals with the Germans.It was one of the reasons why it took Wolfgang Petersen so long to get the money for Das Boot before that(when American studio's had shown interest in the book)there had been talks about involving Americans in the script or having the German crew be played by Americans as was done in The Cross Of Iron wich was based on a book by Willi Heinrich(Steve McQueen was rumoured to have shown interest in the part of Jürgen Prochnow).
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ronanjmc
9 years ago
The problem with FoOf wasn't that it jumped between time periods. I saw 500 Days of Summer recently and I thought it switched between different points on the timeline very smoothly. Another example is Memento, which is non-linear in a different way, but non-linear and hard to follow all the same. Both of these movies were pretty popular with critics and audiences.
FoOF pulled off the time period switching quite badly, IMO. But that wasn't the only thing: the movie was far too long and slow for its content and frankly, just too many things happened without any good, coherent plot to good them together. There was no clever planning needed because the Americans just piled loads of soldiers onto the island until they took it over. The Japanese in LfIJ had to plan things and strategise because they had very limited soldiers and supplies. Seeing these things is what makes a movie more interesting. Things are often more interesting when told from the point of view of the underdog. It was a story that was told much better from one side than the other.
Btw, I gave FoOF 6/10 and LfIJ 8/10.
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