Flags of our Fathers

If the first casualty of war is truth, then Flags of our Fathers is an attempt at a posthumous exhumation of the real story of the iconic image of the American flag-raising at Iwo Jima. Though the graphic depictions of conflict are here, all present and brutally correct, the heart of the film is beyond the battlefield, and far more interesting, centring on the symbolic sale of the image by the war PR machine. Unsurprising for a narrative so concerned with imagery and representation, the film is aesthetically exquisite, beautiful and disturbing in equal measure, with the keen attention to atmospheric accuracy so intrinsic to an Eastwood production. An intelligent, powerful, and tangibly important film, which may only be surpassed in all three categories by the imminent sequel-of-sorts to come - the Iwo Jima story as told from the Japanese perspective. A dead cert for Oscar season, and deservedly so. [Lindsay West]