Is there such a person who can laugh with you, cry with you, chase your boyfriend with you, or even give up on him for you. If there is, you must be happy.
Director Shunji Iwai's "Flowers and Alice" is one such story.
Teenage Flower (Apricot Suzuki) and Alice (Yu Aoi), a pair of close friends who grew up together, learn to dance together in a dance classroom every day. Alice has a bold and outgoing personality and is proactive in pursuing love. And Hua is shy by nature, always throwing herself into a secret crush, and even can't muster up the courage to speak to the boy she likes, and all her emotional activities are hidden in the semi-underground. While accompanying her friend Alice to chase and follow her college boy at first sight every day, Hana also secretly falls in love with Miyamoto (Guo Zhibo), who often accompanies the boy.
Soon, Hana and Alice were admitted to the college that they had longed for for a long time, and Hana managed to join the cross-talk club where miyamoto, the senior she loved, belonged to. One day, as usual, Miyamoto, who was obsessed with cross-talk research, walked and read with a library booklet in his hand, and he knocked on an iron door and fainted on the ground, and when he woke up, his mind was suddenly blank, and there was a temporary "memory loss". And the flowers that deliberately linger within the scope of Miyamoto's activities every day, at this time, in a hurry, did not allow for careful thought, and told Miyamoto, who had just woken up after falling to the ground, and told a big and harmless lie, saying: "I am your girlfriend, the girl you have courted and confessed." From then on, the story unfolds subtly.
Miyamoto was suspicious and had to cooperate with Hana's guidance to start a pseudo-love affair that began with deception, while the snowball of lies was getting bigger and bigger, and the situation was out of control. In the midst of the nonsense, Alice is also involved in this fictitious love affair and becomes Miyamoto's ex-girlfriend. Man is not as good as heaven. Hana na had thought that this love story written by her script, but the plot did not unfold according to her layout, Alice, who had been playing the role of her ex-girlfriend, became more and more into the drama, and slowly began to be attracted to Miyamoto, and Miyamoto also had real feelings for Alice. This love triangle created by Hua is gradually out of her control and heading in an interesting direction.
The flowers and Alice in the film are like two very different girls in life, one is lively and cheerful, and takes the initiative to fight for what she wants, while the other is introverted and tolerant, and may do something to hurt others for what she wants. This movie reminds me of the movie "July and Ansheng", which is also a story between two girls and a boy, but the tone of the story of July and Ansheng is sad, one goes around, one is caught in the life prescribed by others, and the final twist is that two people start to really be themselves after paying a lot of painful costs. And Shunji Iwai's film, the whole is relaxed and happy, whether it is the struggle of friendship, the distress of the crush, the relationship between the daughter and the parents, it is carried out in a warm atmosphere.
The one that moved me the most in the film was Alice, played by Yu Aoi, who lived the way I wanted to be. After experiencing the divorce of her parents, her father always loved her, and from time to time he would come out with her to have a date between father and daughter and eat together, only to find that her daughter's preferences had changed a lot, and she did not love to eat before, and became fond of eating. My father recalled that when he was a student, he received the gift of a fountain pen, although he did not use it, but whenever he saw it, he would remember who gave it. His father also drew a scoop according to the gourd and gave Alice a pen. In this dialogue between father and daughter around the pen, the discerning person will find the intention of the father to send the pen: I hope that the daughter can think of his father from time to time. Finally the father said to Alice with Chinese, "I love you, goodbye." "Very ordinary two sentences, but I was extremely moved. How many girls have spent their whole lives longing for their father's love, but they can't even get what they deserve. Alice, a divorced family, had it!
Let's talk about Alice's mother! In the film, Alice's mother is in the film for the first time, when she eats with her new boyfriend. Alice sensibly did not expose the fact that she was her daughter, but avoided it. After returning, Alice did not blame her mother for not recognizing her, but as usual, she made beef hot pot to eat, just to talk to her mother in a serious way, telling her: "Love that does not have the purpose of marriage is a hooligan." In the blink of an eye, the audience seems to be a little misplaced, Alice is the mother, the mother is the daughter. Mature, filial piety, sensible, these words can be put on Alice.
Of course, the most important thing in the film is friendship. The movie of the two girls, in addition to lesbians, is more of a friendship. Alice disguised herself as Miyamoto's ex-girlfriend in the case of accidentally hitting and bumping into each other, and cooperated with him to perform one "recovery memory" drama after another. Girls in this period, when they meet a very good opposite sex, are easily moved by it. Alice is no exception, but she still gave up chasing true love for her friendship. You know, she is the lively and cheerful Alice, she is not used to playing crush, she is used to taking the initiative, in the end, she still chose friendship.
Such a thoughtful, lively and cheerful girl, full of lover ability, everyone wants to have such a girlfriend! She was like a little sun that illuminated everyone around her. Alice's ballet solo in the film shocked all the people present, beautiful, elegant, feminine posture at a glance. The director must also be partial to Alice, showing Alice's beautiful side to the audience, and also making everyone remember an actor who can dance ballet.
In fact, in the plot of the idol drama, there are many two girls who are good friends, but after meeting the plot of the deeply loved him, they tear each other apart, and the audience is also eager to see this kind of plot. In particular, one of the girls is kind, and the other is scheming, so that the plot is more perfect. Shunji Iwai did not take the usual path, he just filmed the most beautiful youth, girlish thoughts, and beautiful friendships. After watching the whole movie, although the male protagonist is not with any of the girls, this is the best ending! Because at such an age, although love is very beautiful, there are many beautiful things in the world, friendship, family affection, dreams, which one is very precious. Most importantly, you can truly be yourself.
"Flowers and Alice" touches on the emotions of adolescence that everyone experiences. Director Iwai is a great businessman, and youth is the most sought-after commodity in his hands, selling better than eroticism and killing. The dead are always immortal, and he knows how to use various means to package youth beautifully. Iwai's film style is always so delicate and beautiful, and the protagonists in his films are often slender and sensitive, with transparent and innocent primitive simplicity, and even the most evil people can be touched by his hazy poetic story.
In the process of experiencing the absurd and fallacious love triangle, the two girls gradually become considerate and mature, and the friendship between them is more indestructible. The love woven by the girl is doomed to be fruitless from the beginning, and the love comes and goes hazy, even making people wonder whether it is love. But it is this chaotic feeling that is the most real, the closest to the experience of adolescent love— short, fragile, and evocative. The protagonists of the play, Flowers and Alice, the pure and beautiful appearance of the two and the youthful performance ensure the touching index of the film.
The film continues the consistent youth theme and aesthetic and refreshing feeling of Iwai's works, but "Flowers and Alice" has less of a bit of resentment and more of a sense of praise for youth and the cherishing of friendship, which is also a small breakthrough.