In theaters

LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA, directed by Clint Eastwood, written by Iris Yamashita, 141 minutes, rated R. Mostly in Japanese with English subtitles.

Clint Eastwood’s World War II movie, “Letters from Iwo Jima,” recently was nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Watching it, one might question how the current political climate and war overseas affected the direction the movie takes.

The same is true for Eastwood’s companion film, “Flags of Our Fathers,” which is reviewed in brief below.

If “Letters” had been shot soon after the terrorist attacks of 2001, for instance, would the movie have viewed the enemy as honorably as it does here? Or in the isolating rush of patriotism that followed the attacks, would it have vilified the enemy, regardless of who it was, because doing so would have been more culturally acceptable?

As for “Flags,” one has to question whether that movie would have had such a cynical edge if not for the cynical times in which it was made.

As with any popular art, movies about a specific historic event tend to reflect the current mood, which can skew the truth into a shape it didn’t have.

“Letters” and “Flags” are products of a climate fatigued by war, which shows in the films’ reactionary, cautionary approach to war. This isn’t new and it doesn’t dampen their appeal.

Still, when one considers the World War II genre, the truth about the time it evokes is best mined from the collective whole rather than from the individual film. It’s here, in this cacophony of perspectives, that Eastwood’s two movies will prove indispensable.

While neither is a great movie, they are good movies, adding additional viewpoints to a period in history too complicated for any one film – or any two films, in this case – to fully capture.

Told almost entirely in Japanese with English subtitles, Eastwood’s “Letters” is a careful balancing act that takes the high road in honoring the Japanese for their beliefs and their convictions as they launched into combat against American troops.

Just as “Flags” gave audiences the American perspective in our attack on Iwo Jima, “Letters” puts audiences into Mount Suribachi’s caves with the Japanese and, by doing so, shows us their side of the fight.

As such, you come to know the troops intimately, particularly Gen. Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe, excellent), the Olympic gold medalist Baron Nishi (Tsuyoshi Ihara) and the native soldier Saigo (Kazunari Ninomiya), who longs to be home with his wife and their new child.

Each joins the other Japanese soldiers in realizing that for them, Iwo Jima is akin to a death sentence. They are so grossly outnumbered by the Americans, their thoughts of winning this battle quickly turn to the dark reality of suicide.

It’s here, assisted by the film’s narrow focus, that the movie finds its twist. Since it’s the unlikely war movie that places you in the curious position of sympathizing with the enemy, that nevertheless is what Eastwood achieves.

What he mines from this war is the humanity lost within war, how reckless and unacceptable it is when there are other alternatives. That’s his point.

Some will make compelling arguments that Eastwood doesn’t give us a complete picture of the Japanese or their atrocities, but the director still is betting that right now, perhaps the world could benefit from another perspective – especially if that perspective is derived by viewing the world through the eyes of one’s enemy.

Grade: B+

On DVD

FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS, directed by Clint Eastwood, written by William Broyles Jr. and Paul Haggis, 132 minutes, rated R.

Clint Eastwood’s “Flags of Our Fathers” is concerned with the power of a singular image – Joe Rosenthal’s iconic photograph of six unidentifiable men lifting an American flag high atop Iwo Jima’s Mount Suribachi on Feb. 23, 1945.

It was an image that gave hope to a nation nearly broken – on every level – by war. Recognizing in that hope an opportunity for propaganda, some in Washington convinced the photo’s three survivors to make public appearances around the country to raise money for the war bond effort.

Those men were Navy corpsman John “Doc” Bradley (Ryan Phillippe) and Marines Rene Gagnon (Jesse Bradford) and Ira Hayes (Adam Beach), all of whom were in the right place at the right time (or the wrong place at the wrong time, as this deeply cynical movie explores) when Rosenthal snapped the photo.

The film becomes about their inward struggle to deal with the heroism cast upon them. For Rene, it’s easiest – he enjoys the fame. For Doc, it’s difficult, though Ira suffers most – not only because he believes he doesn’t deserve the adulation, but because, as an American Indian, he encounters the crush of racism at every turn.

Beyond the performances, which are routinely good, the battle scenes mirror those in “Letters” in that they are masterful, particularly in an early scene that evokes the Omaha Beach landing in Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan.”

For Eastwood (whose film is co-produced by Spielberg), the beach in question runs along the black sands of Iwo Jima, where the hail of Japanese gunfire carves a forest of flesh as the men come off the boats to fight.

The action and the carnage is unrelenting, with Eastwood hammering away at his soldiers and at his audience. What he achieves is a heightened sense of realism that fills our senses to capacity until it bends us backward into surrealism.

The effect doesn’t thrill the way lesser war films do. Instead, it humbles.

Grade: B+

Visit www.weekinrewind.com, the archive of Bangor Daily News film critic Christopher Smith’s reviews, which appear Mondays in Discovering, Fridays in Happening, and weekends in Television as well as on bangordailynews.com. He may be reached at Christopher@weekinrewind.com.