Review: Nature (and the Audience) is Out of Balance in “Evil Does Not Exist”

By Ben Miller

Following the release of Darren Aronofsky’s divisive 2017 film mother!, most of the viewers who saw it didn’t know what was going on. It was only until it was explained that it made any sort of sense, and then it almost made too much sense. Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist lives on that same plane, with significantly more subtlety.

Not that this is the time or place to spoil the film by breaking it down scene by scene, but those places exist and can be found relatively easily. That doesn’t exactly bode well for the film. It’s one thing for a filmmaker to make you think, it’s another to send you on a search for answers you wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. On the flipside, the answers make so much sense, it enhances the film long after the credits have rolled...

Image courtesy of Sideshow/Janus FilmsHitoshki Omika stars as Takumi, a widower who lives with his young daughter Hana (Ryo Nishikawa) in the peaceful village of Mizubiki, Japan. A new real estate project sets its sights on the village for a glamping (glamourous camping) site. A pair of PR reps Takahashi (Ryuji Kosaka) and Mayuzumi (Ayaka Shibutani) are sent to the village to attempt to persuade the villagers to sign off on the project. The villagers live in balance and in harmony with the ecosystem. The developers have no understanding of the reality of the village and how it operates. Realizing they are the pointless middle-men, the PR reps are stuck in-between their jobs and their morality. With nature seeming to take over and hunter’s gunshots lingering in the background, the cool calculation of the environment rears its head in radical ways.

Image courtesy of Sideshow/Janus FilmsThe big difference with Evil Does Not Exist and mother! is the subtlety. Once mother!‘s themes are laid bare, you can feel the bat of metaphors beating you over the head with the message. This film does not do that at all. Instead of putting on a big show of “look at how important we are being,” this film has a gentle warning about the perils of underestimating the environment and basic nature.

That’s not to say the message is crystal clear. That is a ding on the film more than anything else. Spoon-feeding the audience is not something I hope filmmakers do, but the amount of trust Hamaguchi has in the audience is also too much. There can be the middle ground where a little bit of trust goes a long way without venturing into the realm of confusion. It’s very easy to see a group of viewers leaving the theater dumbfounded on what they just watched. Still, all the actors are suitably underplaying their parts. It’s not about the characters, it’s about the villagers who understand this balance with nature and the outsiders who can never understand. This is all lensed with a clean eye by cinematographer Yoshio Kitagawa. While the setting is obviously chilly and remote, there is nothing particularly ominous about the environment, thanks to the visuals.

Image courtesy of Sideshow/Janus FilmsThe real star of the film might be composer Eiko Ishibashi. The score sweeps and forebodes, foreshadowing a threat that might or might not be real. Hamaguchi utilizes the score often and drops it out when the tension needs to be increased. Hamaguchi knows exactly what he is up to, even if he keeps the audience at arm’s length.

Surely to be polarizing, Evil Does Not Exist proves to the world that Drive My Car was no accident. Hamaguchi is a filmmaker of singular vision and visual style, even if he makes things a bit too complicated.

Grade: B
Evil Does Not Exist is now playing in select theaters

Comments

[Cláudio Alves]

"It's very easy to see a group of viewers leaving the theater dumbfounded on what they just watched." - I confess that, for me, this is a feature rather than a fault. Indeed, how much this film and its ending shocked me out of comfort was its best quality, destabilizing and thought-provoking. Weeks after seeing it at TIFF, I was still reflecting upon its mysteries.

Moreover, there need not be one closed reading. Films like EVIL DOES NOT EXIST benefit from being polysemic.

That being said, I agree with a lot of what you write. Indeed, Eiko Ishibashi is the film's greatest star.