Hana and Alice

Hana and Alice are childhood friends. Alice usually takes the lead and isn’t too concerned about the consequences of her actions. Hana, on the other hand, is very concerned. When they go to ‘high school’ – they are about 15 – infatuations start to influence their friendship. Growing up is also growing apart. When Alice sees a handsome boy on her way home, she advises her girlfriend to make friends with his friend Miyamoto ‘Mark’. Things start moving when Hana surreptitiously follows him and sees him bump his head on the wall. When he regains consciousness, Hana tells him they have something going and that Mark must have lost his memory as a result of the blow. Hana and Alice is a subtle portrait of intimate teenage emotions. The fine psychological sketch only emerges slowly. Iwai is primarily interested in the details that usually remain invisible, the selfish obsessions of teenagers, where those come from, how they unleash their will on the world and only learn slowly what the consequences are of all their youthful illusions. Iwai achieves that in a dreamy, occasionally almost magical and often humorous way. Strangely enough, the stunningly acted film emerged from several short Internet films that Iwai made for Kitkat (chocolate bars) in Japan and that were so popular that he decided to turn them into a feature. He also wrote the beautiful score of chamber music. (GT)