Sunday 22 January 2017

Flags of our Fathers | Clint Eastwood, 2006

Flags of Our Fathers | Clint Eastwood, 2006

"Looking at it, you could believe the sacrifice wasn't a waste."

A dessert served at a fundraising dinner held in honour of the three surviving subjects of Raising The Flag on Iwo Jima, an iconic photograph that became a sign of hope during World War II. The horror and tragedy that surrounds this picture is lost on American soil, where the war is seen in black and white and the blood is away from the headlines. But for these men, stolen from the front-line to become poster boys of war bonds, the blood is vivid red. As they're paraded around the country, their friends die on the battlefield. They're more valuable as symbols than as soldiers now, but, to them, their absence is the same as blood on their hands. And the photograph keeping them from war is now served to them on a plate, smothered in blood-red strawberry sauce. Symbols mean more than men. Images mean more than reality.