Printemps du Cinema -- 18 - 20 March

Theaters across France celebrated the Printemps du Cinema, offering moviegoers a chance to see new films or revivals at a discounted price of 3,50EUR. With some places charging as much as 8 or 9 EUR for a film, these three days are truly a precious opportunity to see some first-run movies.

Even though it was a weekday, the theater were I went, CNP Terreaux (about fifteen minutes walk from my apartment), was full of people. I snuck into the showing of "Letters from Iwo Jima" right as it was starting, and had trouble finding a seat.

The film itself was beautiful and stunning, although there were couple parts that were needlessly melancholy. Without those parts, the film might've been perfect (as one movie reviewer had suggested), and if no one had told me otherwise I would never have guessed Clint Eastwood as a director.

The film itself is NOT revisionist history of the Japanese fighting on Iwo Jima, but it does humanize the battle on both sides. Families on both sides have no other wish than to have their sons and husbands come home safely from the war.

Beautifully filmed and all in Japanese (I could follow almost all of it, although I kept reading the French translations on screen and got confused), this movie was worth viewing, although for those of you who don't like the gore of war movies, be forewarned: there are some gruesome scenes, just as in Private Ryan.