Evil Does Not Exist
In Ryûsoke Hamaguchi’s latest film, local environmental issues are treated in a fascinating if sometimes challenging way.
In 2022 the Japanese director Ryûsoke Hamaguchi who was at the time unknown to many of us knocked us for six with his Oscar-winning 2021 feature Drive My Car. He has now followed up on that with this new work which he has both written and directed although the concept on which it is based is credited to both Hamaguchi and to Eiko Ishibashi. If Evil Does Not Exist fails to repeat the extraordinary success of Drive My Car that is hardly surprising, but it should be said at once that it is an intriguing work which certainly confirms that Hamaguchi is a major talent with an individual voice. It is a film which should be seen and discussed with respect.
Any description of Evil Does Not Exist could make it sound a much more conventional movie than it actually is. Over the years a number of socially conscious pieces have been filmed with the aim of challenging pollution caused by corporations. Some have been documentaries and others enacted dramas and we had one as recently as 2019 when Todd Haynes made Dark Waters. Consequently, the situation at the heart of Evil Does Not Exist is relatively familiar even if this time the setting is a Japanese village named Mizubiki. In this setting we meet Takumi (Hitoshi Omika). He is a wood cutter and water gatherer and now a widower who lives with his young daughter, Hana (Ryô Nishikawa, the most natural of child actresses). This is a world in which nature still reigns supreme and in which Takumi passes on to his daughter his deep knowledge of trees and it is established in a way that gives Evil Does Not Exist its highly personal voice. Hamaguchi has a particular respect for the work of the composer Eiko Ishibashi whose score here is part of the film’s very precise use of sound (furthermore as noted above Ishibashi is credited as contributing to the very concept of the film). The opening scenes are largely wordless while the images (fine colour photography by Yoshio Katagawa) view the landscape that is so familiar to Takumi in a rhapsodic manner. But the music can break off suddenly, even the credits seem to interrupt the mood and the sound of a distant hunting shot itself suggests a threat. Such details challenge the meditative tone that has been set as also do other touches: a fawn is found shot dead and we are told that the local deer are usually harmless but not if they have been provoked.
Having set the scene in such a personal way, Hamaguchi then supplies the information that fuels the main drama here. A company in Tokyo has selected this village as an ideal location for a glamping site – which is to say that they are planning to create there a glamorous kind of camping development aimed at appealing to the rich. To win over the locals and to obtain their support, the company has turned to an agency providing corporate PR and two of their representatives are given the job of visiting the village, meeting its chief and promoting to the villagers the benefits that the scheme will purportedly bring to Mizubiki. These two are Takahashi (Ryûji Kosaka) and Mayuzumi (Ayaka Shibutani).
Hamaguchi handles the key sequence of the public consultation in a mode that echoes the total naturalism that Cristian Mungiu brought to a somewhat comparable scene in his recent film R.M.N. It is here that it emerges that the scheme could be very harmful indeed: the proposals involve the use of a septic tank which is both ill-placed and inadequate for purpose and there is a clear risk that spring water vital to the villagers will be polluted. A new resident (Taijirô Tamara) protests strongly and Takumi himself is deeply concerned.
These scenes may be similar to those in other dramas of this kind but that is no drawback at all given the skill involved here. Furthermore, in at least one aspect the plotting of Evil Does Not Exist involves a welcome approach that one would not anticipate. We spend some time with Takahashi and Mayuzumi and discover that far from being employees without a conscience they have their own issues and even share doubts about the proposed development. With thoroughly reliable performances from all of the leading players, the film is coming along well up to this point with an apt balance between the somewhat minimalistic approach present in the atmospheric elements and the strong thrust of the main drama. However, the last third of the film suddenly shows signs of slowing up again and then features plot developments which raise more questions than answers (we discover that Takahashi himself has leanings towards a rural life and Takumi’s daughter goes missing from school). Rather than these elements building towards some kind of meaningful resolution, the film becomes increasingly enigmatic leaving one ultimately uncertain just what Hamaguchi wants to say here. It's part and parcel of that that one is left wondering how the title Evil Does Not Exist fits in. A second view might or might not help, but the impression left by a single look at it is of a fascinating film that is ultimately rather frustrating. Even so, its qualities count for more than its defects by a good measure.
Original title: Aku wa sonzai shinai.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Hitoshi Omika, Ryô Nishikawa, Ryûji Kosaka, Ayaka Shibutani, Hazuki Kikuchi, Hiroyuki Miura, Yoshinori Miyata, Taijirô Tamura, Yûto Torii.
Dir Ryûsoke Hamaguchi, Pro Satoshi Takada, Screenplay Ryûsoke Hamaguchi, from an original concept by him and Eiko Ishibashi, Ph Yoshio Kitagawa, Pro Des Masato Nunobe, Ed Ryûsoke Hamaguchi and Azusa Yamazaki, Music Eiko Ishibashi.
Fictive/NEOPA-Modern Films.
106 mins. Japan. 2023. UK Rel: 5 April 2024. US Rel: 3 May 2024. Cert. 12A.
