hana and alice, 6.0
hana & alice (2004), 135 minutes. Japanese movie. Directed by Shunji Iwai.stars Anne Suzuki as Hana and Yu Aoi as Alice (Arisugawa), as well as Tomohiro Kaku as Miyamoto (Mark).
Synopsis: As middle school students, Hana follows Alice's lead. The two best friends are inseparable, whether taking the train to various places, going to school, or at ballet lessons. Coming across two uniformed boys at the the train station one day, Alice declares that she likes the taller, half-Japanese one, and tells Hana that she can have the shorter one, who always has his head buried in a book and constantly repeats a very long, nonsensical sentence to himself.
After passing their high school entrance exams, the two deal with the unflattering uniforms and continue in their friendship as before. At school, Hana joins the two-person storytelling club and is christened "Hanna the Funky" by the club leader, who wears a kimono, has a terrible hairstyle, and is extremely sketchy (more on this later). The only other member of the club is Miyamoto, the train boy, who completely ignores her and leaves her at the mercy of the club leader's bizarre behavior.
Following Miyamoto home from school one day, she sees him get in an accident (like everything about Miyamoto, this term is used in the most inert sense possible). She rushes to his side, declares that he has amnesia because he can't remember saying "I love you" to her, goes with him to the hospital, and henceforth makes it her goal to help him "remember" their previous relationship. This is, of course, a time-consuming endeavor, and she gradually drifts apart from Alice as a result.
Suddenly at leisure in her extracurricular hours and unable to stay at home, Alice starts pursuing a modeling career and is shown in a series of awkward auditions that lead nowhere, until Hana seeks her out again to help her maintain the web of lies she has woven around Miyamoto's life. Through these experiences, their friendship is taken through the breaking point of adolescence, with poignant lessons for all.
Opinion: My roommate Hanna and I held high hopes for our respective namesakes in this film, and were alternately frustrated and surprised by the sheer unpredictability of the story. As mentioned before, Miyamoto is a mere breath away from being inanimate, while Hana and Alice vary from being vulnerable to being totally nuts. This is a very, very quirky movie with many beautiful scenes, some hilarious scenes (whether purposefully so or not is up to debate), one scene that I found completely unwatchable (involving the storytelling club president in a very improper one-man show), and several scenes I can only describe as slightly absurd, though I don't say that in a condemnatory way. A bit too loosely edited, this movie would have profited from condensation in terms of duration and cohesion in regard to structure.
Verdict: 6.0/10.0 Hanna liked the movie a lot; I thought it was ok.
posted by alice @ 6:22 AM
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