Evil Does Not Exist (2023)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Evil Does Not Exist (2023) – R. Hamaguchi

Director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s follow-up to his award-winning Drive My Car (2021) deserves close scrutiny but a firm interpretation might remain elusive.  Starting with that title, it is hard to fit it to the events of the film which see the residents of a rural Japanese village (a few hours drive from Tokyo) resisting a company’s attempt to locate a touristy glamping site in their midst.  You could argue that the company is evil for attempting to exploit the natural resources of the village and for trying to over-ride the concerns of the small community (focused on water contamination and bushfire risk).  Yet, the villagers themselves acknowledge their own impact on the local ecosystem has not been entirely positive either and count themselves as outsiders whose families relocated there only after the government encouraged farming in the region after WWII.  (Some, like the local Udon restauranteur, arrived even later). Not all of them are polite. This pushes us toward a reading of the title somewhere in the vicinity of Jean Renoir’s “Everyone has their reasons” (thought to be the awful thing about life; from The Rules of the Game, 1939). So, perhaps evil does not exist because everyone sees their own actions as justified, even if to others they might appear “evil”.  Yet, this isn’t even the main theme of the film (or perhaps not a theme at all).  Instead, there is a man versus nature or perhaps civilisation versus nature theme that weaves its way through the film.  Takumi, a local handyman, and his young daughter, Hana, seem to be the main representatives of “nature” or perhaps they are better thought of as people who live in harmony with nature; he chops wood and draws water from the local stream for the Udon restaurant. In contrast, Takahashi and Mayzumi, employees of a talent agency wanting to get into the glamping business, represent Tokyo and the intrusion of civilisation on nature.  Although Mayzumi seems the most sympathetic to the objections of the villagers, Takahashi is the one who becomes fascinated with the potential of a “back to nature” tree-change to his life and vocally considers moving to the village to become the glamping caretaker.  A side conversation hints that Takahashi, who desires a family and has been using a dating app, is closer to the “traditional” evolutionary behaviour of humans than Mayzumi who rejects the possibility of having children.  So, another reading might suggest that evil does not exist to the extent that humans are simply other “natural” creatures following their instincts, even if more recent changes move us away from the more animalistic needs of our early evolution.  The film is slow cinema, highlighted by Eiko Ishibashi’s intense score, and Yoshio Kitagawa’s mysterious transcendental visuals.  So, when anxiety and conflict erupt at the end of the film (echoing many of the themes but somehow still opaque and inscrutable), it’s a shock to the viewer who must ponder this reverberating moment as the film abruptly concludes.