Shunji Iwai has had a remarkably diverse career since bursting onto the scene with his 1995 hit film, ¡°Love Letter.¡± In addition to producing, scripting, editing and scoring his own films and those of others in various combinations, he has made everything from TV dramas to documentaries.
But as seen in ¡°Kyrie,¡± his latest multilayered musical melodrama, Iwai has also stayed remarkably constant. In both ¡°Love Letter¡± and ¡°Kyrie,¡± the protagonists are played by pop stars, with Miho Nakayama starring in the former and the singer-songwriter known as Aina The End in the latter. Also, both films are romantic to their cores, with Iwai¡¯s restless camera probing every emotional tremor.
There are differences, too: Nakayama does not sing on-screen, while Aina The End performs an entire album¡¯s worth of songs (as does pop singer Chara in Iwai¡¯s 1996 film ¡°Swallowtail Butterfly¡±). And ¡°Kyrie¡± tests the audience¡¯s patience with a 178-minute runtime, an hour longer than ¡°Love Letter.¡±
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