‘Evil Does Not Exist’ Review: Ryusuke Hamaguchi Follows ‘Drive My Car’ With an Unsettling Reflection on Man and Nature

What a strange, unpredictable film Ryûsuke Hamaguchi has made to follow his rapturously received international breakthrough, Drive My Car. While Evil Does Not Exist (Aku Wa Sonzai Shinai) reins in the symphonic expansiveness of its predecessor, this more compact slow-burn drama builds its own hypnotic, changeable rhythms, along with a quiet sense of dread that sneaks up on you just as people on both sides of a conflict appear to be working toward common ground — whatever that’s worth. An ending that pushes its ambiguousness to confounding lengths will be a deal-breaker for some, but this haunting stealth thriller about violations of nature is a work of undeniable power.

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If the shadow of Chekhov stretched elegantly over Drive My Car, the Japanese writer-director’s new film might almost be said to have a kinship with Ibsen, its tensions around the potential contamination of a water supply and the heated responses at a town meeting at times evoking An Enemy of the People.

Developed from a concept by Hamaguchi and composer Eiko Ishibashi, the project began as a silent film to be accompanied by the musician in live performances. But observing the interactions of people in nature during that shoot inspired the director to expand the idea into a feature, in which the mercurial moods of Ishibashi’s score play a significant role.

The principal setting is a small rural community outside Tokyo, where locals live modest existences, taking pleasure in routine tasks and respecting the integrity of the natural world that surrounds them.

It’s a full 10 minutes before a word is spoken. During that time, DP Yoshio Kitagawa’s camera gazes up through the wintry treetops while taking a long backwards stroll through the woods as Ishibashi’s melodic opening piece gradually folds in notes of ominous dissonance. On the ground below, 8-year-old Hana (Ryo Nishikawa) ambles around in the snow while her single father, Takumi (Hitoshi Omika), is off in another part of the forest with a buzzsaw and axe, chopping firewood.

When his friend Kazuo (Hiroyuki Miura) comes to help Takumi gather several large containers of fresh spring water to deliver to the village noodle bar, the two men exchange a few words, commenting on the distant sound of a deer hunter’s rifle and noting the flavor of a patch of wild wasabi leaves. As Takumi rushes off, realizing he’s late to pick up Hana from daycare, his buddy reminds him about the briefing from the “glamping people” that evening. Accustomed to her dad forgetting her pickup time, happily self-reliant Hana has walked home.

Both the ridiculous word and the concept of “glamping” sound like assaults on nature and that first meeting between residents and two representatives of the development project is a wonderfully spiky scene. Unfolding without music and in real time, it has the kind of keen-eyed observation Frederick Wiseman brings to the apparatus of negotiation in his social institution documentaries, and a more subdued version of the rippling uneasiness of the impromptu town hall that kicks Cristian Mungiu’s riveting R.M.N. into a higher gear.

The Tokyo company behind the cynically opportunistic development is Playmode, a talent agency swimming in government COVID relief cash, with a cutoff date by which to spend it. That means rushed construction plans and a project full of holes that blindside the two staffers, meekly polite Mayuzumi (Ayaka Shibutani) and slick Takahashi (Ryuji Kosaka), when they open the floor to questions following a fluffy presentation video.

The chief concerns among attendees are the location and capacity of a septic tank that would cause pollutants to flow downstream if the site is operating at full occupancy, and the risk of wildfires spreading from unsupervised campfires. Their water is a vital lifeblood to the community, explains the village mayor (Taijiro Tamura), while the noodle joint owner (Hazuki Kikuchi) says one of the benefits of relocating from the city is that her soba noodles taste so much better when boiled in spring water.

There’s subtle humor in Takahashi getting quietly flustered as he tries to smooth things over with talk of the economic boon to the community of the new shops and businesses sure to be drawn to what will become a tourist hotspot for Tokyoites seeking a back-to-nature escape with upscale comforts. Those words reassure precisely no one in the room, ending the meeting on a tense note.

In the scenes that follow, Hamaguchi flips the viewpoint to Mayuzumi, who is genuinely embarrassed by their lack of preparation, and Takahashi, who’s somewhat chastened though maybe still cocky enough to think there’s a quick fix. After a frustrating Zoom meeting with their unconcerned boss (Yoshinori Miyata), they are sent back with a gift of alcohol and the offer of a caretaker position for odd-job guy Takumi, whom they have been told is an expert on the area.

That car journey back to the village, gives Hamaguchi time to humanize the two bantering agents, who are in way over their heads. Some of the scenes that follow are low-key hilarious as they call on Takumi and then stick around after lunch, offering to help out. Their cluelessness is endearing, with poignancy quietly surfacing as the outsiders respond to the serenity and gentle pace of the place and the rewards of pitching in on simple chores.

But the balance has already been upset. Before anyone gets too cozy, Hamaguchi suddenly pulls the dramatic rug out from under us with a crisis that unites the entire village and sparks an unforeseen reaction in stoical Takumi. That leads to one of the most WTF? endings in recent memory, a legitimate puzzler that will frustrate or maybe even infuriate as many audience members as it intrigues and challenges.

Whether by accident or design, the Venice Film Festival’s choice to press-screen the film the night before its public premiere seems like a genius strategy. I woke up this morning with that concluding scene still playing on a loop in my head, mulling the possible interpretations in what seems a collision of disturbing dream and reality. Either way, this is a movie that holds you tight in its grip right up to those jaw-dropping final moments.

The ensemble (including some nonprofessional locals) is fully convincing as a tight-knit community, while Kosaka and Shibutani both have illuminating arcs as the hapless interlopers, their initial detachment dissolving with each new insight into these strangers and the very different quotidian demands of their lives. Hamaguchi is an expert at molding interactions among groups of dissimilar people, and the shifting dynamic at the briefing here recalls some of the terrific rehearsal scenes in Drive My Car.

The surprise of the cast is that Omika is not an actor but was on the crew of Hamaguchi’s Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy. A strong, grounded presence, he makes Takumi a caring if forgetful father and a tireless worker, with perhaps a tinge of sorrow connected to the unexplained absence or loss of Hana’s mother, seen in photographs around the house. His darkening demeanor in the final act is truly unsettling.

Kiyagawa keeps the camerawork loose and fluid, with a rough-edged feel that suits the environment, and Ishibashi’s ever-changing score, with its abrupt cutoffs, works in sync with Hamaguchi’s radical shifts in perspective and tone. Evil Does Not Exist may not have the staggering emotional force of Drive My Car, but as a penetrating study of character and milieu, it’s the work of a mature and enormously talented filmmaker not afraid to take chances.