Archive for February, 2007

Letters from Iwo Jima

Clints’ Oscar nominated film is certainly well crafted. The acting is solid, cinematography is impressively sombre and almost monochromatic. There are well crafted battle scenes but it is never overdone, as Clint focuses on the characters themselves so that we can feel sympathy for the soldiers caught in a doomed battlefront on Iwo Jima. Ken Watanabe is great as General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, whilst the best role has to be that of the reluctant soldier Saigo (Kazunari Ninomiya) who, despite generally being seen as a coward, is actually one of the brightest, bravest and most humane characters in the movie.

Overall though I felt that the film was a little overlong or lacking in pace, given the heavy atmosphere and feeling of claustrophobia that you are drawn into. There were one or two brief comic moments that give relief, but it was not enough to prevent you from leaving the cinema feeling a little depressed. Perhaps that was Clints’ intention, given the outcome of the conflict and the fact that he probably wants to send out an anti-war message.

War – what is it good for?

An American perspective on terror

This is from an American friend of mine who went to work in Syria last year, but had to return following the attack on the US embassy in Damascus. She returned shaken but unharmed to the States. Lately she has been disturbed by the number of (negative) forwards she gets about Muslims in America, and decided to make a statement about this wave of hate and her experience in Syria:

“On September 12, 2006, I was inside the US Embassy in Damascus, Syria, when it came under attack from four Syrian terrorists.

They threw hand-grenades.
They rammed a van laden with explosives into the entry gate.
They fired AK-47s at Syrian guards and innocent civilians.
They blew up their car.
They blew up themselves.

I’d heard the message that Al-Qaeda issued, that every good Muslim should kill an American. And hearing that, I still wonder, in a land where I was surrounded by Muslims, how is it that I, an American, survived?

I survived because …

Syrian Muslim guards rushed me out away from the van ready to explode
Syrian Muslim guards pushed me up the street away from the immediate violence
A Muslim shopkeeper hid me behind his counter so I, an American, would not be seen
Four Muslim women clustered around me and prayed
A Muslim woman took me by the hand and ran me up the street further from the violence
Another Muslim woman and her three sons took me into their home until the attack was over
Another Muslim woman and her husband drove me to my friend’s apartment since it wasn’t safe for me to go to my apartment

I’m hardly a convert, but I think it’s pretty clear that I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the Syrian Muslims.

Violence is not a religion.”