Watched Letters from Iwo Jima on HBO last night, mainly because Alan Holst mentioned to me, a long time ago, that it is one of Clint Eastwood's best directorial jobs. Alan is right. I did enjoy it, and very much. The performance of Saigo (Kazunari Ninomiya) was one of the most refreshing I have ever watched on the screen. It is amazing how Clint Eastwood can elicit great performances from his actors, and this movie is one such testimony to that. Here is one of just a few movies that have "normal" people as characters, meaning, no perverts, no kinky criminals, no neurotics, no psychotics, no sociopaths, no dysfunctionals. You can tell whether a Clint Eastwood movie is a "serious" movie or a "not serious" movie--his "serious" movies have protagonists only and no external antagonists.

On the down side, cinematic structure is Clint Eastwood's Waterloo--he tends to repeat himself with every "serious" film. Iwo Jima's structure is exactly the same as that of Bridges of Madison County and Mystic River. Moreover, the director overuses the brief flashback as a convention in all three films. I must say that, if I were to interpret his movies as his dreams, his entire oeuvre is a reflection of a deep yearning to return to youth--somewhere between childhood and adolescence--to recapture and retrieve things lost, opportunities missed, relationships wounded--before complete acceptance of adulthood can comfortably set in.

But hey, I was just watching a movie.