Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Ryusuke Hamaguchi
Starring: Hitoshi Omika, Ryo Nishikawa, Ryuji Kosaka, Ayaka Shibutani
Evil Does Not Exist, writer/director Ryusuke Hamaguchi's first film since his Oscar
nominated Drive My Car, has much in common with a couple of recent Romanian films. Like Radu
Jude's
Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, it explores how the entertainment industry s increasingly co-opted to
do the dirty work of unscrupulous businesses. And like Cristian Mungiu's
R.M.N., it's about a small rural community's apprehensions regarding
interlopers. As with Mungiu's film, Hamaguchi's features an extended and
gripping scene set at a town hall meeting.
The Japanese filmmaker's latest is his most obtuse work to date,
leaving viewers with questions about its form and content, and in
confusion over choices made by both the filmmaker and his characters. A
day later I'm still puzzled by its final scene and the actions of a
certain character, but amid the ambiguity are expressions of clear
frustration on Hamaguchi's part about the path the modern world is
taking.
The drama plays out in a small village where everyone knows everyone
else's business and it's still safe for an eight-year-old to walk home
alone through the woods. That eight-year-old is Hana (Ryo Nishikawa), the daughter of single father Takumi (Hitoshi Omika), who
makes a modest but content living performing various menial tasks for
the community, like chopping wood or collecting still water from a
stream and delivering it to the local noodle restaurant. The owner of
said restaurant sums up the attitude of the people who live in this
village when she speaks of how she left Tokyo because the water in the
village allows her to make superior noodles than those found in the
city. Money is less of a concern than the fulfillment she gets from
knowing she's providing the best service possible.
It's a sentiment that's tested when a Tokyo based "Glamping"
(glamourous camping) outfit announces its plans to build a site in the
village. Rather than facing the locals themselves, the company contracts
a talent agency in the hopes that well rehearsed responses and fake
smiles will be enough to win over the locals. Takahashi (Ryuji Kosaka) and Mayuzumi (Ayaka Shibutani) are sent to seduce the
villagers at the aforementioned town meeting. They're clearly unprepared
to address the villagers' various concerns, foremost of which is the
possibility of their water supply becoming polluted by the extra waste
created by so many tourists. As the village chief bluntly points out,
water flows downstream.
What he's really getting at is that shit flows downstream, a crude
image that quickly sums up Takahashi and Mayuzumi's role in this sordid
affair. As we watch them deliver frustratingly vague responses like "We
will take your concerns into consideration" and "Your point has been
noted," it's easy for the viewer to see the pair as the classic villains
of an eco-thriller. But as suggested by his film's declarative title,
Hamaguchi doesn't believe in the binary concept of good and bad.
Following the fraught meeting, the film switches focus from Takumi to
Takahashi and Mayuzumi. As we watch the pair endure a zoom meeting with
their employer, we see that they're now the ones whose concerns are
being brushed aside. Far from the cold-hearted drones we might have
first thought, Takahashi and Mayuzumi are genuinely affected by the
worries of the villagers. As they're sent back to the village to try to
win over Takumi in the hopes he'll persuade his fellow locals to come
around, Hamaguchi delivers an extended car scene in which the pair vent
their frustrations at how their careers have lead them down such an
unethical path.
Hamaguchi spends most of the first half of his film presenting the
tranquility of the village. There are lengthy shots of Takumi chopping
wood, of Hana walking through the forest, and of the treetop canopy as
the camera gazes up from a worm's eye POV. Some viewers may find this a
test of patience, while others will bathe in the expression of the slow
pace of life in this part of the world. Such lengthy sequences may seem
inconsequential, but they prime us for the impending assault on the
land. Hamaguchi allows shots to go on for longer than is traditionally
expected, only to abruptly cut just as composer Eiko Ishibashi's
score is beginning to swell, a canny way to evoke the disruption the
community is set to face.
Dreyer's Ordet would appear to be an influence on the
structuring of Hamaguchi's latest. Like that Danish classic,
Evil Does Not Exist piles one seemingly inconsequential
scene on top of another to a point where we begin to wonder if this is
going anywhere in narrative terms, and we question if we're actually
invested in what we're watching. Then in the second half, when such
mundanity is threatened, it becomes clear why the filmmaker took so much
time in painting such undramatic details of daily life. This isn’t the
tragedy of the pianist who loses their hands, but rather of a simple way
of life threatened with unwanted complication.
Hamaguchi doesn't make things morally digestible for the viewer
however. We want the village to remain unsoiled, but we also empathise
with Takahashi and Mayuzumi, for who among us can claim to live a life
free of consequences to others? Capitalism has turned us into human
centipedes, constantly ingesting someone else's shit while ejecting our
own waste into the mouth of someone less fortunate. The enigmatic to the
point of head-scratching closing scene suggests that maybe we're all
just animals, motivated by simple concepts like territory, family and
freedom, that what we call "evil" is often simply the human form of an
animal doing what it believes it must to protect the herd.
