Ryûsuke Hamaguchi has never had an affinity for the outdoors. “I didn't really have a relationship with nature growing up,” the Japanese writer and director says from Tokyo via Zoom through an interpreter. “I wasn't a Boy Scout. “I barely went camping.”
It's no surprise, then, that the 45-year-old filmmaker behind 2021's Oscar-winning “Drive My Car” has primarily set his character-driven stories in cities. This is just one reason why his latest stunner is so surprising: “Evil Doesn't Exist” (now in limited release) is a story about nature and very much set in it. Examines the slow tension consuming a sleepy rural community after a big-city talent agency aggressively explores building a glamping site in its pristine forests, launching this project to raise lucrative pandemic subsidies from the government.
The locals are displeased, including Takumi (Hitoshi Omika), a quiet, outdoorsy single father raising his 8-year-old daughter, Hana (Ryo Nishikawa). But two of the company's public relations representatives (Ryuji Kosaka and Ayaka Shibutani) try to court Takumi's favor in the hopes that he will influence his neighbors and change their minds.
That is the setup of “Evil Does Not Exist,” but it hardly conveys the ineffable unease that runs through the film. After the unlikely Hollywood triumph of “Drive My Car,” Hamaguchi’s “Evil Doesn’t Exist” (award winner at the 2023 Venice Film Festival) is a daring left turn, an enigmatic and vaguely sinister work in which the unknowability of the forest seems to affect the characters. (At 106 minutes, it's also much shorter than most of his recent work.)
Hitoshi Omika in the movie “There is no evil.”
(Sideshow and Janus Films)
When Hamaguchi submitted his film for consideration to members of the New York Film Festival selection committee, he confessed that he didn't quite know what he had done. They accepted it. And all these months later, he still isn't sure: he just knows that he needed to achieve it.
“I remember the movie,” Hamaguchi says in his soft, slightly perplexed tone, “and I think about how it all turned out this —”, the director waves his arm in reference to the disconcerting film that has just been released. “I feel less and less uncomfortable with each viewing.”
The origins of “Evil Does Not Exist” are themselves a twisted story through the forest of creative inspiration. A few years ago, musician Eiko Ishibashi, who wrote the score for “Drive My Car,” asked Hamaguchi to provide visuals for a live performance of a commission she planned to compose. However, before getting to work, they needed to decide on a topic, which slowly came together after six months of email brainstorming.
“She told me that she was very interested in lost landscapes,” Hamaguchi recalls, “and I was in a place where I was bored with creating works that focused solely on human drama. “I was interested in non-humanity and capturing things from a broader perspective.”
Ishibashi and Hamaguchi's collaboration eventually became the 2023 concert piece, “Gift,” which married its silent images with its live improvised score, filled with haunting strings and electronic elements. From there, Hamaguchi decided to develop the concept into an independent film, realizing that he had found his next film.
Ryo Nishikawa in “There is no evil.”
(Sideshow and Janus Films)
After his globe-trotting promotion of “Drive My Car” during a grueling awards season (very surreal for a filmmaker with three-hour thinkers), it was perhaps inevitable that Hamaguchi would respond with a film about a character who has retreated from the world, hiding. in a cabin in the woods.
“It was a full year of film promotion and also during the height of COVID, so I had to be very careful when traveling,” he says. “There was a lot of pressure because, since I was traveling, if I got COVID, then I couldn't return [home]. All these things caused me a lot of fatigue, it was very exhausting.” Hamaguchi smiles. “I would say the lesson I learned is not to release two movies in the same year.” (“The director’s Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy” premiered at the Berlin Film Festival a few months before “Drive My Car” began its storied run.)
In an example of life imitating art, Hamaguchi, as the director character of “Drive My Car,” was driven to different rural locations while planning the filming of “Gift,” and became friends with his driver, Omika. Omika, a member of the “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy” team, is not an actor, but Hamaguchi saw the potential in him.
“As we were exploring together, I realized that it has this attractive, mysterious look that attracted me,” Hamaguchi says. “So I called him and said, 'This may surprise you, but do you have any interest in acting?' At first he was taken aback, but finally he said yes. He had just started directing and that's why he was interested in how to communicate with the actors. Once he knew that, I knew he could start writing.”
Omika wore her own clothes for the project and Hamaguchi didn't worry about tailoring the role for her. “The character I wrote is more like Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson,” Hamaguchi admits of his taciturn protagonist. “But Hitoshi is not like that in real life: he is much softer, there is a certain sweetness to him. The character I wrote has flaws, but perhaps Hitoshi's inherent sweetness allows us to accept those flaws.”
A scene from the movie “Evil does not exist.”
(Sideshow and Janus Films)
Now that he has appeared on television around the world giving an acceptance speech at the Oscars, Hamaguchi acknowledges that moviegoers unfamiliar with his previous films, such as the five-hour-plus drama “Happy Hour,” are eagerly awaiting his Bis. And he wonders if, unconsciously, any of the reactions to “Drive My Car” led him to make the movie he made. Despite all the praise for that film's insight into grief, Hamaguchi worried that audiences wouldn't fully understand what he was going for.
“It was often talked about as a story of loss and rejuvenation,” he says of his Academy Award-winning film and Japan's first best picture nominee. “However, it's not just about that; I think there are more complicated things in it. There is a certain sense of absurdity within the film. Those other elements [were] shaving [in the public discourse]and [those] Elements are also necessary in movies. “There was a part of me that felt that by making 'Evil Doesn't Exist,' I could show that this is a film that I also make, so I'm not pigeonholed as some kind of filmmaker.”
This time, Hamaguchi sought to make a film in which the deeper motivations and meanings remained mockingly unclear, even to himself. On top of that, he chose a disconcertingly declarative title that viewers would have to contend with. When asked about his own feelings regarding the presence of evil in the world, he responds: “I think most people will say that evil does not exist within nature; evil intentions are not present within nature.” nature, so that was a starting point for me. . Ultimately, all the characters in the film do what they think is good. However, it still results in something bad.”
The plot of “Evil” was inspired by a real glamping project in a small town, but although Hamaguchi’s script reflects on the friction between consumerism and contentment, it is tempting to also read “Evil Does Not Exist” as the meditation of a filmmaker about the battle between art and commerce. Hamaguchi appreciates all of his interpretations of the elegant puzzle and adds that he found the process of writing and filming “Evil Does Not Exist” comforting. “Working with a small-scale production was a healing experience and gave me a sense of balance,” he says.
There is no such respite for his characters, who seem unbalanced. Ishibashi's dazzling, orchestral score, peppered with hints of danger, underlines the sense of disharmony, as do the random gunshots that explode in the distance in the forest. The ground-level tracking shots of Hamaguchi pointing upward, with the trees rising menacingly above, suggest a psychological thriller. We've all seen horror movies where characters get lost in the middle of nowhere, but in Hamaguchi's hands something more sinister and indescribable unfolds.
Now that he has made a film about the invisible power of nature and emerged refreshed, Hamaguchi recognizes a new appreciation for nature.
“The trees look pretty to me,” he says. “I realize that each tree is different from each other. When observing the forests, I see that there is communication between the trees. Trees have become something I am interested in photographing in the future.”
Looks like he's not out of the woods yet.
