Flags of Our Fathers (2006) ****

Ira Hamilton Hayes

January 12, 1923 - January 24, 1955

This may seem like an odd choice in terms of native representation in film as well as a first review for a blog devoted to archiving native American voices in cinema but in my opinion, this is just as good a beginning as any. After all, Clint Eastwood's Flags is a film that portrays a broad spectrum of the American experience - not much different from the reality that is this country. The reason why I chose this is particularly due to its somewhat subsidiary, yet nevertheless prominent emphasis on Ira Hayes who was the Pima forbearer of the American flag on Iwo Jima. However brief, his presence is a clear punctuation of the post-war experience of many natives; severe alcoholism is a mass contagion for all native peoples and is one of the primary causes of death among them. To add furthermore, he was yet another case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) which affected veterans of all colors and creeds. Despite this, he had a considerable stint which notably had him raise the flag once again in the 1949 John Wayne film The Sands of Iwo Jima. But he was a man who abhorred the mechanics of fame and was found dead lying in his own pool of vomit and blood near his Gila River reservation in Arizona.

The film itself is a very good companion to the otherwise superior Letters from Iwo Jima also directed by Eastwood. Adam Beach bears a ghostly resemblance to Hayes and proves once again that he is a competent and versatile actor among the Hollywood upstarts today. But anything else I say would more than likely just reiterate what many others have already said; it's a film worth viewing subsequently followed by Letters.

Hayes is not a unique case though in the annals of American military history. Natives have always been great contributors to cause and country; I recall the use of the Navajo language to essentially build a "code" that was rendered indecipherable to the enemy which was utilized during World War II (this was also the premise of a film called Windtalkers starring Nicholas Cage). It's a curious wonder though that natives will enlist in the Army and fight for a country that has done virtually nothing but wrong to them; perhaps it is the ancient spirit that yearns and clamors for honorable confrontations as I recall reading an elder say that they fight because it is in their blood to fight. After all, it is better to be oppressed by one tyrant as opposed to two.