The Case of Hana & Alice

Alice moves to a new town with her family, and the first thing she hears at school is a legend: a pupil called Yuda was poisoned by his four wives. Her neighbour Hana, who never leaves the house, sits somewhere inside that story. Trying to work it out, the two become friends. The film is a prequel to Shunji Iwai's Hana and Alice from 2004, showing how the pair met. The method is the interesting part: it was shot with live actors and drawn over frame by frame, that is, rotoscoped. That allowed Anne Suzuki and Yu Aoi, the stars of the original, to play the same middle school characters again a decade later. Iwai wrote, directed, edited and contributed to the music. Its flaws: over two hours is long for this story, the detective thread is never taken seriously, and rotoscoping softens the faces enough to create distance in places. Who it is for: admirers of Iwai and of quiet coming of age stories. Who it is not for: viewers who want pace and incident.