A One Mann’s Movies review of “Evil Does Not Exist” (2023).
Original title: Aku wa sonzai shinai
“Evil Does Not Exist” from Japanese director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi is very much an arthouse film. If you find yourself scratching your heads about what happens in the last 5 minutes, you will not be alone!
Bob the Movie Man Rating:
Plot Summary:
Takumi (Hitoshi Omika) lives a simple life in a rural Japanese community, bringing up his young daughter Hana (Ryô Nishikawa) alone. But a plan for a new ‘glamping’ sight for tourists is set to disturb the delicate balance between the community and nature.
Certification:
UK: 12; US: NR. (From the BBFC web site: “Moderate violence”).
Talent:
Starring: Hitoshi Omika, Ryô Nishikawa, Ryûji Kosaka, Ayaka Shibutani, Hazuki Kikuchi, Hiroyuki Miura, Yoshinori Miyata, Taijirô Tamura, Yûto Torii.
Directed by: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
Written by: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (From an original concept by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi & Eiko Ishibashi)
Twitter Handle: #EvilDoesNotExist.
Running Time: 1h 46m.
Takumi (Hitoshi Omika) likes to chop wood… lots of it. (Source: Fictive).
“Evil Does Not Exist” Review:
Positives:
- Builds an extraordinary mood of life in the rural Japanese village.
- A ‘town hall’ meeting is uncomfortable and well-done.
- The ending gives you a worthy debating topic!
Negatives:
- Glacially slow at times that was bordering on frustration.
- The ending will trouble you!
The two Playzome reps – Mayuzumi (Ayaka Shibutani) and Takahashi (Ryûji Kosaka) with an unenviable mission. (Source: Fictive).
Review of “Evil Does Not Exist”:
What is “good cinema”?
People go to see movies for different reasons and there is absolutely nothing wrong with letting your hair down to a popcorn-munching blackbuster like “The Fall Guy” or violent noir-thrillers like “Love Lies Bleeding“. But there is another type of cinema and “Evil Does Not Exist” falls into that bracket. This is a film that treats cinema as an art-form and pushes those boundaries to a point that some people might view as pretentious. This is a completely different type of ‘good cinema’ and arguably some of the pictures and emotions that “Evil Does Not Exist” stirred up will probably stay with me for a lot longer than the cheap thrills of the blockbusters.
For example, the opening titles has the camera doing a (very) leisurely walk through a wood, gazing at the treetops. This is to the hypnotic music of Eiko Ishibashi. It goes on for minute after minute after minute, a bit like the musical opening to “The Zone of Interest“. Quickly going through my “Come the fuck on Bridget!” frustration phase, I found my mind completely wandered off into irrelevant thoughts. (As such, I couldn’t actually tell you how long this sequence lasted!) I just know that I was knocked out of my reverie when Ishibashi’s music abruptly stopped.
We also spend inordinate amounts of time seeing our protagonist Takumi chopping wood, or carrying water from the local spring to a car. Any other film would have these sequences as swift 30 second intercut scenes. But here they go on, with the camera as a fixed observer, for minutes on end. While I found this glacial pace frustratingly slow, I did find that I was becoming invested in this group of people’s rural idyll and on their reliance on the quality of the water “upstream”.
Erin Brokovitch 2
The drama at the heart of the movie concerns the plans for the glamping site and the impact that that will have on the community. The points are made at a ‘review meeting’ where too hapless representatives of the developers – Takahashi (Ryûji Kosaka) and Mayuzumi (Ayaka Shibutani) – face a well-informed group of villagers. Bizarrely, the developer – ‘Playmode’ – is a ‘casting company’ which felt very random!
Few other films are likely to spend so much time discussing septic tanks! We learn of the importance of clean rivers (very topical in the UK at the moment) as the officials throw off glib assumptions that 5% human sewage in the water is “fine”. With this focus on clean water (emphasised obviously by the time we previously spent spooning water directly from the brook into the restaurant’s bottled supply) the movie felt a bit like Erin Brokovitch. The ‘little people’ facing the unstoppable forces of the evil capitalists. The scene of the coordinated villagers presenting their case, with the village leader (Taijirô Tamura) suppressing the more pugnacious approach desired by one of their number (Hiroyuki Miura), felt like a wolf pack intelligently hunting their prey. A very effective scene.
That Ending!
I obviously can’t go into spoilers in this main section, but for me to say that the finale of this film will have you scratching your heads would be an understatement. Aside from it not actually being clear what the ‘result’ of the two incidents are, you are left to make your own assumptions as to why things are happening the way they are. If this was “the big film that everyone went to see over the weekend” (which was never going to happen for an arthouse film like this) then THIS would by the ‘water-cooler topic’ on Monday morning. I’ve read a number of theories online about the ending and have summarised my view of what it all means (Basil) in a “Spoiler Section” below the trailer.
Summary Thoughts on “Evil Does Not Exist”
I really struggled with my rating of this one. Part of me found it tedious, dull and – yes – slightly pretentious. But there is no doubting the mood that is built up through the film’s leisurely pace. Then, with its surprise twist ending, this is a film that will stay with me for a very long time. So I’ve given it 4-stars as a result. Cinema should be memorable – for good or bad reasons – and this manages to be memorable for both!
Where to Watch it (Powered by Justwatch)
Trailer for “Evil Does Not Exist”:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVY4lWfrbME .
Spoiler Section:
Don’t read past this point if you’ve not seen the movie.
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NO, SERIOUSLY!
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My interpretation of the Ending
FIrstly, it’s not clear whether Hana is dead or not. Takumi feels for her breath but shows no emotion either way as he carries her away. It’s also not clear if Takahashi dies or not. After the initial assault, we see him stagger into shot and then collapse again. But my assumption was that the final walk through the wood at night was him, trying to reach civilisation and safety for treatment. Though whether he succeeds with that is left open-ended.
The big question is WHY Takumi attacks Takahashi. My assumption is that the title of the film “Evil Does Not Exist” relates to evil not existing in the animal world. A deer wouldn’t vindictively attack anyone, but if it was wounded, weak and feeling threatened it might. My assumption would be that Haka approached the wounded doe, with its calf, and the deer attacked and seriously injured/killed her. When faced with the grief of that situation (having previously lost his wife too), Takumi reverted to natural animalistic instinct in wanting to protect his threatened environment and way of life and attacks Takahashi – the city dweller who suddenly (and mendaciously?) wants to infiltrate their community in such a naive and shallow way. (This still feels a big stretch to me!)
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