'We Are Aliens' (2026): Cannes Film Review

Is the moon red because it's angry or because it's blushing? In Kohei Kadowaki's inescapably brokenhearted 2D feature animation 'We Are Aliens' (premiering at Cannes' Directors Fortnight), this catchphrase that connects the two main characters in their childhood friendship moves into angry territory before leading to blushing. This is a first feature animation (a Japanese-French co-production: Nowness/MIYU Productions) that is unafraid to venture into heart-wrenching territory, painstakingly detailed in its visuals, with a story that fittingly borders on horror and a weak subplot.

Using both Kurosawa's 'Rashomon' and, particularly, the more recent 'Monster' (2023, Kore-eda Hirokazu) technique of narrating things in fragmented chunks of first-person views (before it switches to the next person in question), 'We Are Aliens' tells the story of two friends, the shy Tsubasa and the more action-prone Gyotaro. Destined to be best friends at school in a small Japanese town, yet instead, things go terribly wrong (and the drama starts). While the film title shouts 'misfits' ahead, the first part of the film uses this concept very loosely (Gyotaro is the main target here, yet not easily categorized as the 'bullied' type). The 117-minute films, which take their time to move through certain school periods before switching to Gyotaro's point of view, give more of a sense of a friendship that starts well but quickly becomes the sort of petty conflicts that, left unaddressed, escalate.

Kadowaki is good at building tension (also a screenwriter and an editor here), though sometimes he is too busy to spend more time with his characters in serene circumstances together. Misunderstandings lead to physical assaults, and, eventually, the two friends will separate. A romance (and a girl as a love interest between the two) becomes the catalyst for major events, even if the film uses it more perfunctorily than as a fully-fledged story to be told.

'We Are Aliens' is a film that needs to put all its different time periods in focus, and, to a large extent, it manages to be focused and suspense-driven. Its meticulous attention to detail (again supervised by Kadowaki) brings forward a world (always soaked in rain) viewed from all kinds of different angles, but mostly from above ("looking down from high places") -as if to distance itself, as far as possible, from the tension the characters face -no wonder that Gyotaro's favorite animal is the long-necked Seismosaurus. Both Tsubasa and Gyotaro's character arcs (from riches to rags, though not in the expected order) serve the plot admirably, and their Western-like confrontation (in the film's second part) carries the film from a friendship story gone wrong to a fierce battle between losers.

Watch the 'We Are Aliens' trailer

Faces are ragged in 'We Are Aliens' (the film uses 2D hand-drawn and rotoscoped animation), and sometimes this gives away the surprise element of the second part, like an inevitability and pessimism that don't always suit the film's course. Yet, the sci-fi element and the exaggeration (in an otherwise urban scenery) of facial expressions work admirably (even if expectedly) towards the increasingly uncomfortable situation.

'We Are Aliens' is never a dystopian film about society at large, nor does it present itself as a teenage anime drama (even though some elements are undeniably present); it works more as a good-old elegy about wasted friendship, and it even goes as far as to say that childhood friendship is the prime element of valued youth. While it falls short of the tragic heights it aspires to, its momentum is solid, and its worldview constructed with earnestness and tenacity -and it merits attention.

Vassilis Kroustallis

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