If I hadn't had independent evidence to the contrary I would have sworn there was something wrong with the print. Unfortunately, the disgustingly desaturated colours (the kind of colours that look as though they've already passed through someone's digestive system, if you get my drift) were deliberate. Every print looked as hideous as the one I saw; every screening, therefore, was just as much a painful chore to sit through. It would have been far franker - and far kinder to the audience - to shoot in true black and white, rather than in the various shades of pale murkiness one might see in institutional carpets that have fallen into disrepair and haven't been washed since the 1970s. Occasionally, when we leave the island of Iwo Jima, we might see some foliage that you can tell without squinting is green rather than yet another shade of mouldy brown; the cinematography off Iwo Jima is still lousy and the footage still looks like photos that were under-exposed and then left in the sun for a few months, but by this stage we're grateful for the smallest of mercies.
This disqualifies the film from serious consideration as a work of real merit. Nothing this ugly can be worth watching - even if the musical score had been other than thin and banal (it isn't), if the story had been about anything (it isn't), if there'd been a single moment or idea or exchange that had been well conceived or energetic (there isn't), the colours alone ought to be enough to make any self-respecting critic or audience member to say: "Sorry, I'm not interested." The fact that this film had an audience is a sad comment on audiences.
To make my point, Eastwood's companion piece, Letters from Iwo Jima, is in principle a much better film: it isn't a kind of dour flag-waving exercise (people, this film is about a flag! a flag, for Christ's sake! it's not about human beings at all!); there's a genuine story with a central character one could reasonably take an interest in; by taking the viewpoint of the opposing side, Eastwood and Haggis have managed to get some freshness in their conception... but none of this matters: there's the same damned god-awful colour scheme to get past, and it can't be got past.
Why do you think so many people mistook this piece of hothouse patriotism for an anti-American work? A comment on the futility of war, or some such? It certainly can't be the film's content: it's because staring at various subtle shades of pigswill for two hours is enough to put anyone in a miserable mood.
This disqualifies the film from serious consideration as a work of real merit. Nothing this ugly can be worth watching - even if the musical score had been other than thin and banal (it isn't), if the story had been about anything (it isn't), if there'd been a single moment or idea or exchange that had been well conceived or energetic (there isn't), the colours alone ought to be enough to make any self-respecting critic or audience member to say: "Sorry, I'm not interested." The fact that this film had an audience is a sad comment on audiences.
To make my point, Eastwood's companion piece, Letters from Iwo Jima, is in principle a much better film: it isn't a kind of dour flag-waving exercise (people, this film is about a flag! a flag, for Christ's sake! it's not about human beings at all!); there's a genuine story with a central character one could reasonably take an interest in; by taking the viewpoint of the opposing side, Eastwood and Haggis have managed to get some freshness in their conception... but none of this matters: there's the same damned god-awful colour scheme to get past, and it can't be got past.
Why do you think so many people mistook this piece of hothouse patriotism for an anti-American work? A comment on the futility of war, or some such? It certainly can't be the film's content: it's because staring at various subtle shades of pigswill for two hours is enough to put anyone in a miserable mood.