Nature’s Phantom: The Guised Violence of Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist

Following the breakout success of his Oscar-winning Drive My Car, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi gained a larger audience: a Western one that was primed to see his vision expand, perhaps beyond the borders of his native Japan. But his followup, Evil Does Not Exist, instead remains within his present field of vision and becomes his most contained film to date. Hamaguchi shifts his focus from the man-made structures of cities like Kobe or Hiroshima to the rural village of Mizubiki, a largely untouched community outside of Tokyo that has caught the attention of a talent agency intent on setting up a “glamping” site in the vast woods of the area. 

Ever since I first saw Hamaguchi’s five-hour housewives epic Happy Hour, I’ve been struck by the invisible violence that proliferates throughout his work. In the aforementioned, it is the violence of marriage and domesticity. Drive My Car, the inner violence of grief. And now in Evil Does Not Exist—in perhaps his most overt display—the attack on community, culture, and the environment. This common thread is perhaps why the shift from meditative character dramas to an eco-fable veering into thriller is not a completely confounding stylistic leap.

Evil Does Not Exist follows local jack-of-all-trades widower Takumi and his daughter Hana. Both characters have a familiarity with the surrounding woods, shown by their knowledge of the trees and local wildlife. Hitoshi Omika (a first-time performer, who was originally Hamaguchi’s driver while location scouting) portrays Takumi with a stoicism that could be misconstrued as vacant, but is more akin to that of a man who keenly understands how the world operates. He sees how society and capitalism encroaches and takes from the natural world, as well as how nature will always command its authority. Similarly, Ryô Nishikawa plays young Hana with a quiet curiosity and inexplicable connection to the woods that she is continually cautioned about.

It would be easy to trivialize the “evil” usurpers from the big city (played by Ryuji Kosaka and Ayaka Shibutani), who attack this rural community with pretty words, such as how the glamping site will boost the village’s economy. But Hamaguchi instead humanizes them, recognizing they, too, are trapped inside the wheel of corporate greed. That is not to say the two are entirely sympathetic to the plight of the locals. In a village briefing regarding the glamping site with the locals, we see the concerns—a quiet anger boiling amongst the residents—bounce off the schooled features of the two corporate employees. Yet in a brief but abrupt interlude in Tokyo, we see that they too think their company’s glamping facade, an attempt to gain the last of COVID-19 subsidies, is unrealistic, and are disillusioned with the machinations of their bosses.

Throughout the film, nature is presented as entirely unknowable, uncontrollable—and ultimately dangerous. Evil Does Not Exist begins by looking up towards bare tree branches, sprawled out like spiderwebs. Spiderwebs are resilient, but easily torn away. Their destruction, however, clings to their assailants. Hamaguchi and director of photography, Yoshio Kitagawa, capture the beauty and mystique of the woods surrounding Mizubiki. The camera follows Takumi through his routine: chopping firewood, collecting water for residents of the village, and a serene walk with Hana while quizzing her on the various types of trees. Kitagawa’s clean, controlled photography reveals the existence of a nature untouched by human greed, even in a locale so relatively close to urban cityscapes like Tokyo. Unfortunately, the casual discovery of a half decomposed deer—struck by a hunter’s bullet—reminds us of the reach and grip humanity has. The mystery of Evil Does Not Exist culminates in a disappearance then a violent reclamation, cautioning that our continued violations of the earth will heed little results for ourselves and the future.

It is impossible to talk about Evil Does Not Exist without discussing its score and composer Eiko Ishibashi. After their collaboration for the score of Drive My Car, Ishibashi approached Hamaguchi to create visuals for new music she had written and its eventual live performances. The results of this can be seen in Gift, which is currently on tour. Subsequently, through the process of making those visuals, Evil Does Not Exist was formed organically. Hamaguchi’s foray into the thriller genre can also be attributed to the music of Ishibashi. The score features a drone that plays overtop the rhythmic, light drum beats and a sustained woodwind instrument. It is a score that is beautiful, though altogether haunting, unnerving, and sounding abruptly unfinished. The ways in which the music violently finishes informs Hamaguchi’s rhythm and editing throughout the movie. Ishibashi’s compositions have a way of enhancing the solitude that envelops our characters as they find themselves trapped within the confines of nature: haunted, stalked by nature’s invisible specter.

In a Q&A after the film, Hamaguchi stated he shoots with a documentarian’s eye. And certainly, the way he captures the everyday of Takumi and his work, the unfussy ways in which his camera follows conversation, can call to mind the work of Frederick Wiseman (Titticut Follies, Menus-Plaisirs - Les Troisgros). But I have always found an inherent theatricality to Hamaguchi’s films. It could be his troupe of actors that he has continued to use since his first feature, Passion, or the more obvious use of entertainment subjects in his films, like a talent agency or the production of a play. He is a director who certainly looks up to other filmmakers like Kiyoshi Kurosawa (his mentor) and John Cassavetes—whose scripts investigate so critically the lives of their subjects and with performances so steeped in realism that they shift into a heightened, honest, theatricality. Ryûsuke Hamaguchi may document the lives of his characters with an objective eye, but he is also a director who understands the importance of artmaking and the power that it can wield. Hamaguchi is able to capture humanity’s yearning for warmth, connection, amidst the cold desolation of modernity. He's a director with classical sensibilities, but an understanding of the reality we live in.

If Evil Does Not Exist is a warning song, or worse a lament, then I think we should be listening.

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