Takumi (Hitoshi Omika) lives in peace with his young daughter, Hana (Ryo Nishikawa), in the rural village of Mizubiki, not far from Tokyo.  News breaks that a company wants to convert some of the forests that the town relies on into a glamping resort so that the city folk can experience a taste of the outdoors.  Takahashi (Ryuji Kosaka) and Mayuzumi (Ayaka Shibutani) are sent to the town to brief the residents, but they are not prepared for the overwhelming negative reaction that greets them.  They agree afterward to let Takumi show them around so that they can better learn how much the natural world means to the people they are looking to disrupt.  

Ryusuke Hamaguchi returned to cinemas with Evil Does Not Exist, premiering at the 2023 edition of the Venice Film Festival under its Japanese language title, Aku wa Sonzai Shinai. The 106-minute drama was quickly picked up for distribution by Janus Films.  Compared to his most recent output, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (2021) and Drive My Car (2021), this latest effort seems almost like a chamber piece in its singular location and storyline.  It is not to be mistaken for a slight piece as Hamaguchi is as interrogative as ever of his themes, though almost to the film’s own detriment.  

Looking first at the artistry of the film, Evil Does Not Exist is a treat for the senses.  Yoshio Kitagawa’s camera is steady when it needs to be, but often times it glides through the scene wistfully, allowing for moments of popping color against the muddy browns and snowy whites.  The green of the wild wasabi.  The blue of Hana’s coat, and even more so the yellow of her hat.  Late in the film, the red of blood.  Hamaguchi works with Azusa Yamazaki in the editing suite to assemble the footage in a way that similarly plays out like a dream, but it is all too real.  Watching the film is akin to fretting over a worst-case scenario, and Hamaguchi sits on our shoulders like an imp, egging us to follow these intrusive thoughts further and further as Eiko Ishibashi’s score builds and swells – something we are unconsciously aware of like an alarm ringing out while we are in a state of REM sleep – until it stops perfectly discordantly a note or two short of cadence.  We jolt awake from these daydreams only to realize those fears are slowly beginning to be realized on screen. 

Hamaguchi is undeniably working as a visual artist here with his crafts department as his paint brushes, but the lush artistry of the film, while engrossing, keeps us at arm’s length from the heart of the story for much of the runtime.  The images are so meticulously haunting that we are immediately put onto an uncertain frequency from the opening images of Takumi splitting wood and the ringing of his axe echoing back to us.  Later, as he walks with Hana through the woods back home, gunshots can be heard in the distance; singular, accurate, deadly. In tandem with the narrative runs the imagery of a deer, almost a surrogate for the audience, always aware of its surroundings but the deer does not act until acted upon.  It does not run until first, the hunter steps too heavy on a twig and Hamaguchi is uncharacteristically heavy-footed in this film.  From that first frame, we become distrustful of everything we see and hear so that when the finale rolls around it is almost a letdown given how we have been suspended in this state of anticipation for so long.  Hamaguchi opts to leave us horrified by the summation of his film rather than the shock of it, and while this approach certainly works in some cases, it does not feel like the most effective option of the two in this instance. 

Before we can begin discussing the finale in any detail, we need to examine first, the story.  Evil Does Not Exist tells a story that is at the intersection between commerce and the environment.  The driving action of the film is Takahashi and Mayuzumi learning about the rural way of life in far more nuanced and intricate detail than what they need to otherwise exploit the land for profit.  The major problem the townsfolk have with their plan to construct a glamping resort is that the septic tank will be installed upstream from them, contaminating their water supply. Takahashi assures them the contaminants will fall well within the allowable concentration, but it falls on deaf ears.  Even when the promise of increased foot traffic is dangled in front of them, the residents of Mizubiki are steadfast that they do not want to see this plan come to fruition as it will turn them into a spectacle akin to the wildlife the city folk are so eager to commodify for a weekend adventure. 

One of the most affected by this proposed tank is Sachi (Hazuki Kikuchi), the owner of an udon noodle shop who had moved to Mizubiki specifically because the city water imparted unwelcome flavors into her broth.  Takahashi treats her concerns with a shrug, not the response one wants when decrying a plan to literally have human waste dumped down on them from above.  It is a conceit that reads like a satire, but Hamaguchi, while playful at times, downplays the explicit comedy and lets the absurdity of trickle-down economics speak for itself. 

Evil Does Not Exist contains many of the hallmarks of Hamaguchi’s work and his brimming evocative storytelling, but as the third act plays out, the film begins to transform into something like an ecological horror; an exciting turn that is not explored enough but hopefully plants the seed for a future project in the writer/director’s mind as it is well within his capabilites.  The film is very much a work in transition as evidenced by Takumi’s everyman, odd-job quality; a little bit of everything but not totally one thing at the same time. He is not spared the tragedy that often looms over Hamaguchi’s protagonists, but he is not as well defined by it, either.  We end the film with him as much a stranger as when Kitagawa’s lens first glimpsed at him and we know more about these ancillary characters than we do our leading man – or than we do of Hana, too – so while we are affected by what we see, it is hard to call it an effective ending. 

This brings us then to the elephant, or rather, the deer in the room: the ending.  It is a bold and wild swing from a director who is normally much more metered in his approach and a jolt in an otherwise static narrative.  The film also leans much stronger on metaphor than his prior works, not stopping to overexplain what is happening but leaving us with more of a tease than a cohesive conclusion.   

Hana has gone missing, and late in the day of the search for the girl, Takumi and Takahashi find her in a foggy field, staring down a gut-shot deer.  Takahashi, from the city, goes towards the deer or the girl but Takumi stops him knowing his advance will startle the animal and potentially gore his daughter.  He kills the man, strangling him under the strength of his arm, forged from years of working the wilderness. It is a massive and alienating pivot from what we have seen so far and it is not until the fog of shock subsides that it begins to make sense. It is a direct correlation to the title which was spelled out in big, bold, red and blue letters some 100 minutes prior: evil does not exist.  At least, not in the natural world.  We can view what transpires through the moral human lens and assign guilt and blame, but really, we are just animals privileged to sit near the top of the food chain, and when the actions we take are in service to protect what we love – be it our family or our home – can what we do out of love truly be evil especially when what is seen as love is really just a poetic way to frame our survival.  Would we blame an injured deer for lashing out in its own protection? Would we blame a mother bear for protecting her cubs? Do we blame the predator that kills so that it can eat? Hamaguchi is taking the scenic route to ask a very simple question; what are we doing to protect our home? 

Evil Does Not Exist is at once the most straightforward of Hamaguchi’s recent works and also his most obscure and inaccessible.  We stay invested though because of his artistic eye that overwhelms our senses with the tapestry of cinema; visual, audial, and emotional.  Born as a visual companion piece to accompany Ishibashi’s work, the idea grew into a narrative of its own right, but its origin in music is apparent in its structure.  The score absolutely dictates the cadence of the cuts, oftentimes in jarring ways, as one song will immediately flow into another on an album. It creates a unique experience as a film, but it is certainly framed around a concept album so there is a narrative through line – pivots and all – that connects with what we are seeing and will resonate deeply in those who have ever felt a primal frustration at our place in this wild and open world that seems to be shrinking every day as our resources are commodified and exploited, squandered by those with the most power to protect and preserve them.  Hamaguchi once again asks, what are we doing to protect our home?