Hana and Alice

I became interested in Shunji Iwai when I saw his performance in Hideaki Anno's Shiki-jitsu (2000) and I became a fan of his when I saw his masterpiece, All About Lily Chou-Chou (2001). I have seen a few of his films by now and mostly he has made good films, but eventually I was expecting an exception to appear. And that exception is Hana and Alice (2004): a story of two high school girls who fight over a boy with whom both of them have fallen in love.

The premise of the film is simple, but with Iwai at the helm one would expect a refreshing take on the worn-out story. He does try something new with the idea, but the problem lies with its execution. Iwai's unconventional narrative confuses the viewer's emotions too much and the film comes off as too quirky for its own sake. You don't care for any of the characters who seem way too flat and peculiar. This would be OK if it was the film's intention, but when it is not what the film aims at, it makes the film incredibly uneven. The problem becomes worse and worse as the film goes on. Especially the film's big "emotional climax" is very dry and stretched because it had no impact on me. What is even worse that the climax seems to come out of the blue and doesn't really fit into the rest of the film.

Iwai's form is as fresh as it is usually. Beautiful imagery and comfy pacing make the film worthwhile although there are moments when the form is almost as unfocused as the content itself. Some of the performances also rubbed me the wrong way. I don't know if that was only because the characters were so awful or if the tone was simply ruined, but even two of the main trio left me unsatisfied. The only one of the three who convinced was Yu Aoi (unsurprisingly, she was great in All About Lily Chou-Chou as well).

Even though Hana and Alice manages to deliver a barely decent entirety in the end, it is by far the worst film Shunji Iwai has made so far. I hope he does not stumble similarly in future.

Score: 5 out of 10