published in The Daily Californian on May 16, 2024
Fresh off the heels of critically acclaimed “Drive My Car,” Ryusuke Hamaguchi returns with “Evil Does Not Exist” — a gateway drug into a rich cinematic world of environmentalist allegories à la Darren Aronofsky’s “Mother!”
Initially intended to be a silent short film, “Evil Does Not Exist” metamorphosed into 106 minutes of what may be the most enticing shots of tree branches ever filmed. The movie follows the people of Mizubiki Village as a greedy talent agency sets its eyes on developing a “glamping” site upstream, upending the equilibrium of the village and its inhabitants. The handyman Takumi (Hitoshi Omika) serves as the bridge between his neighbors and the agency’s representatives, Takashi (Ryuji Kosaka) and Mayuzumi (Ayaka Shibutani).
Honing in on these three characters entirely, Hamaguchi’s use of silence also takes a leading role. Minutes pass where the only thing the audience can hear is the sound of footsteps in the snow and bated breaths. Just as your ears grow accustomed to the silence, the recurring melody segmenting each act of the film creeps in — perhaps a sonic parallel of the encroaching grasp of urbanization that begins to take over Mizubiki.
The film teeters between moments of subdued conversation and staccato strings. Admittedly, much of the exposition is so snail-paced that casual viewers might find themselves fighting off sleepiness in a theater filled with seasoned movie critics. Despite its laconism, the score saves the day every time — comparable to the techno-house theme of “Challengers,” Eiko Ishibashi’s soundtrack never fails to reel viewers back in.
Even more anxiety-inducing than the film’s sound is its cinematography, toeing the line between voyeurism and exhibitionism. Hamaguchi doesn’t rely on flowery tricks of the camera to make a shot pop. What makes certain scenes so troubling is the camera’s prolonged gaze on a character that makes the audience feel, for lack of better word, perverse — privy to something they shouldn’t be seeing. While the film isn’t lacking in eerie shots of a character from behind some distant tree, what really takes the cake in making viewers become Peeping Toms are the shaky, handheld shots of the characters' cars.
These car shots alternate between perspectives: those filmed as if you were a stowaway in a character’s trunk, holding your breath as you watch winding roads recede out the back window, and those filmed like you were watching a character drive behind you, your eyes glued to your rearview mirror instead of the road. Both variants feel scarily intimate, despite the fact that neither reveal any of our protagonists’ faces.
If it’s not already glaringly obvious, the entire film is an allegory for the balance between the natural and the manmade. Hamaguchi forces his audience to focus on the film’s discordant contrasts: the score, the cinematography, Takumi’s quiet stoicism, Takahashi’s desperate people-pleasing tendencies. Hamaguchi makes it clear he wants his audience to focus on this dichotomy, which grows larger and larger with each passing act of the film.
A third of the movie takes place in a city council meeting, with Hamaguchi refusing to shy away from its bureaucratic mundanity; but its ending is one of the most jaw-dropping sequences of the year. For a movie that spends a vexing amount of time delivering shots of a certain thorny tree branch, the film’s final 10 minutes will be what sticks with viewers. The film is enamored with the balance between light and dark, good and evil — this obsession certainly shows in the film’s denouement.
Hamaguchi’s strength doesn’t lie in flashy montages or explosive outbursts from his characters, but rather from moments when his audience has to come to their own conclusions.
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