Evil Does Not Exist: LFF Film Review
Ryusuke Hamaguchi won the Best International Feature Film Oscar for Drive My Car last year so my hopes for his next movie, Evil Does Not Exist, were high – and I came away disappointed.
This Japanese drama, both written and directed by Hamaguchi, is set in the small rural village of Harasawa, where Takumi (Hitoshi Omika) lives with his daughter Hana (Ryo Nishikawa) deep in the forest. The peaceful, untouched land comes under threat when a Tokyo-based glamping company decides to set up a camp there.
Evil Does Not Exist is a simple film that takes place on a micro scale. It explores how nature and commerce can and should co-exist and has plenty to say about respecting the environment. The glamping company has not considered the dire ecological impact their site will have on the local community and its reps soon understand these concerns when they visit the village themselves.
It took me a long time to get into Evil Does Not Exist because it was very slow and the storyline didn’t present itself for a while. We just watched Takumi chop his firewood and collect his water. There are beautiful shots of the wild landscape and I was never bored but I wondered when it would get going and where it was going.
I liked the storyline, even if it felt very minor, and was keen to see how it was resolved – but Hamaguchi denied us that. When the credits rolled, my jaw dropped at where he left it. There were so many questions left unanswered! I get that some ambiguity can be good but in this case, I felt quite short-changed.
Evil Does Not Exist (odd title by the way) was pleasant enough but the ending made me really mad and ruined what came before.
Seen at the London Film Festival. In cinemas from Friday 5th March