This is the hole that we will fight and die in. Setting the tone for Eastwood’s sober companion to his The Flags of Our Fathers, the masterful Letters from Iwo Jima opens on a bleached, green-grey landscape. Japanese soldiers are preparing the volcanic dot for an American invasion from which Allied forces plan to assault the mainland. General Kuribayashi has been sent to defend the island though, as he soon learns, without support from a now devastated navy. His poorly equipped force will be fighting with little more than dirty guns and honour. Complicating his authority is time he spent in America before the war – some troops see him as a sympathiser unworthy, and perhaps incapable, of fighting for his country.

Flags of our Fathers explored principle and vanity from an American point of view. From a uniquely Japanese perspective, Letters from Iwo Jima brings vivid life to the same, well-worn truism of war’s overwhelming futility in the face of ill-conceived ideology. Who wouldn’t rather be tending family, baking or horse-riding than bunkering down with death and suicide for comfort? Kuribayashi’s back-story is one of several revealed through Eastwood’s searing epic. Foremost is that of a Saigo, a young conscript whose courage and self-sacrifice underpins both films, and offers one of the few bright notes. Flags of our Fathers was an exceptional movie-going experience while Letters from Iwo Jima, a superior film, is a disturbing tour de force. This profound work is almost unrecognisable as that of an American director. Eastwood’s ferocious skill has created delicate beauty from the bile of mankind. Here should be the last word on World War II; a lyrical, haunting experience and the crowning achievement in an extraordinary career.

// COLIN FRASER