Letters from Iwo Jima [HD DVD and DVD Combo]

"Letters from Iwo Jima" is a sad, lonely, melancholic film, for all its brutal action and bloodshed, with moments of sheer poetry and others of heartbreaking grief. Yet never does Eastwood sentimentalize the situation, nor does the simple, haunting soundtrack music by Kyle Eastwood and Michael Stevens ever glamorize the story.

The film's only flaw is that at 140 minutes, it's too long, rather wearing out its welcome at the two-hour mark. Also, Eastwood uses the same gimmick Mel Gibson used in his last two films, that of having his actors speak in their native tongue. So the characters in "Letters" speak Japanese, and anyone who doesn't understand it reads subtitles. I have to admit that I'm a fairly fast reader, but I had some trouble keeping up with the English subtitles that flashed quickly on and off on the screen. Thank heaven for the "Back" and "Pause" buttons on the remote.

Minor concerns aside, "Letters from Iwo Jima" is a fine example of modern filmmaking, and Watanabe deserved another Oscar nomination, which didn't come. But the Academy nominated the picture for four other Oscars--Best Picture, Best Director, Best Writing, and winning for Best Sound Editing.

Video:
On both sides of the disc, the Warner Bros. engineers preserve the movie's original 2.40:1 aspect ratio in dimensions that measure about 2.20:1 across my screen, on the SD side enhanced for 16x9 televisions. As I mentioned earlier, Eastwood and co-producers Steven Spielberg and Robert Lorenz intentionally washed out the color to give the image a kind of black-and-white feel and appearance while still retaining some color. Again, think of "Saving Private Ryan." In standard definition the screen is exceptionally clean, and the object delineation is good. There is, however, an odd sheen to faces, making some of them look eerie, almost waxen. I suspect it is a result of the color desaturation, which forces us to view these men from the outset as among the walking dead.

On the HD-DVD side, the picture is understandably clearer, although there is nothing the HD processing can do about the colors, which remain appropriately faded. Still, when you look at the standard-definition picture after watching in high definition, it's like looking at ghosts--soft, blurred, fuzzy. Sometimes, you never appreciate a thing until you have something else with which to compare it. So, we have yet another advantage of the HD-DVD and Combo disc: the ability to make comparisons and see just what you are actually getting for your money. In this case, it's plenty.

Audio:
If the video quality in the SD version of the movie is very good, the audio is excellent, the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack doing everything it can to reinforce the movie's action and dramatics. The wraparound six-channel sound is most effective, especially when it comes to the battle scenes, but also in its subtle reproduction of rain, wind, and ambient noises. When the fighting does start, though, it's as robust as it gets, as impressive as anything in "Private Ryan" or any other war movie you can name. Impact is strong, bass is deep, dynamics are wide, clarity is superb, and directionality is precise.

In the HD-DVD version, you get the choice of Dolby TrueHD 5.1, the least-compressed audio currently available on disc, and Dolby Digital Plus 5.1, also quite good. Needless to say, I listened in TrueHD, and I found it among the best soundtracks on any high-definition disc I've encountered. Ditto for everything I said about the regular DD 5.1, but make it clearer, cleaner, deeper, stronger, with greater impact than before, and, again, with pinpoint localization in the surrounds. You won't hear anything better on any disc of any kind.

Extras:
This HD-DVD and DVD Combo disc contains the same bonus items found on WB's Two-Disc Special Edition. On the SD side, there are a few trailers for other WB products at start-up only, and beyond that there are thirty-three scene selections; the Japanese language track; and English, French, and Spanish subtitles.

On the HD-DVD side we find not only the movie in HD but the bonus items that were on disc two of the two-disc set, most of them this time in high definition. They start with a twenty-minute, behind-the-scenes documentary, "Red Sun, Black Sand: Making of Letters from Iwo Jima" (HD). It concentrates on the screenplay and story. After that is the eighteen-minute documentary, "Faces of Combat: The Cast of Letters from Iwo Jima" (HD), concentrating on the characters of the film. Then, there is a touching, three-minute still photo montage, "Images from the Front Lines: The Photography of Letters from Iwo Jima" (HD). Finally, we get the November 2006 World Première at Budo-kan in Tokyo, sixteen minutes; the November 2006 press conference, twenty-four minutes; and a widescreen, theatrical trailer, all in standard def.

As always, the HD-DVD side of the disc also carries English captions for the hearing impaired, pop-up menus, bookmarks, a zoom-and-pan feature, and an indicator of elapsed time, the disc enclosed in an Elite Red HD case.

Parting Thoughts:
Considering that Eastwood had the idea for making "Letters from Iwo Jima" almost at the last minute and that co-writer Paul Haggis thought the idea of filming two movies at once was crazy, the result was well worth the effort. In my experience with both films, as I said in the beginning, it was "Letters" that most impressed me with its sincere and compelling attempt to put a realistic, non-biased face on war. If the movie seems too sympathetic to the Japanese side, remember that it is a companion piece to the American side, the two movies presenting a single thought: That war is an ugly, stupid, wasteful, but sometimes necessary evil, no matter whose side you're on.

Fortunately for those of us with HD-DVD players, we know which side we should be on: The high-definition side of the Combo disc, where the picture and sound are glorious.

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