'Flags of Our Fathers' Receiving Positive Reviews

So far, everyone seems to be giving nothing but praise for Clint Eastwood's new movie about the men in the famous flag-raising photo on Iwo Jima.

I am very glad to hear that the movie does recognize that its central image of the flag-raising on Mount Suribachi was in fact the second such flag-raising. The central part of the story revolves around the three surviving men from the photo who were whisked home to sell war bonds and their various ways of dealing with their special treatment.

Long discussions of Eastwood's "elegant filmmaking technique with an almost experimental storytelling structure" leave me rather cold. I was in no way a fan of "Unforgiven" or "Million Dollar Baby".

The default setting of showing heroism (or propaganda about heroism in this case) only through flashback is a bit troubling. Yes, America is losing more WWII vets a day now than during the height of the fighting, but this storytelling trope has the unnerving affect of forcing more recent generations (especially the Baby Boomers) into a narrative that never truly involved them in the first place. Is the GI Generation so foreign to Americans now that we can only empathize with them through an intermediary generational gap?

One reviewer called 'Flags' an unrepentant 'old man's movie.' But which old men are we talking about, those of the generation who were there, or a younger generation who is suddenly feeling their age?