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.”