FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL
Shunji Iwai’s “The Case of Hana & Alice” is apparently an animated prequel and adaptation of a much beloved indie titled “Hana and Alice.” The pair of women are almost like pop culture’s most iconic best friend in its home country, and this film chronicles how they met and became the best of pals. You really don’t have to see the original film, claims much of the press releases, but I’ll say that it might just help. Surely, there aren’t many references to the original film, but the original actresses return to voice their younger selves, and this might be exciting to folks that love the original film. For me, it was just a nice little bit of lip service and nothing more.
I didn’t approach this cynically, but I can’t say that I was entertained the entire time watching it. “The Case of Hana & Alice” has mystery elements to it, but it’s mainly just a coming of age drama about two girls realizing their love for one another as friends and allies through their common goal to find out the secrets of a neighborhood mystery. The animation ranges from impressive to mediocre with stiff rotoscoping through some sequences, but brilliant character work in others. I really wanted to know more about Hana and Alice as the film progressed, and the narrative does its job in that regard. We know who is who, we know their personalities by the end of the film, and we understand why they’re drawn to one another.
“The Case of Hana & Alice” involves Alice coming to a new town to go to school and ends up taking the desk of an ill fated class mate name Judas. She also happens to inhabit the house of the lost classmate, and her new class shuns her when she dares to defy the altar they’ve built to keep his soul at peace. A lot of this is fodder for comedic moments involving them attempting to exorcise her and her desk, as well as Alice beating up a group of boys that try to bully her. “The Case of Hana & Alice” definitely garners a lot of touching moments with brisk animation, it just really needs to be viewed with the original film in order to be appreciated in its full context. I liked it, but I think I may have loved it if I saw the original first.