Original Title: Aku wa sonzai shinai
Japan • Drama • Year: 2023 • Running Time: 106 mins
Language: Japanese
Audience Response: 11 slips returned
- ‘Excellent’: 0 votes
- Very Good’: 3 votes
- ‘Good’: 4 votes
- ‘Satisfactory’: 3 votes
- ‘Poor’: 0 votes
- + 1 Comment left without a grade
Read the comments here or visit the “Evil Does Not Exist” discussion page to join in the conversation.
Synopsis:
In the rural alpine hamlet of Mizubiki, not far from Tokyo, Takumi and his daughter, Hana, lead a modest life gathering water, wood, and wild wasabi for a local restaurant. The townsfolk become aware of a talent agency’s plan to build an opulent glamping site nearby, offering city residents a comfortable “escape” to the snowy wilderness. However, it becomes clear that the project will have a devastating impact on the local community.
Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s follow up to his Oscar-winning DRIVE MY CAR is a foreboding fable on humanity’s mysterious, mystical relationship with nature
Hamaguchi is a master craftsperson, and this beautifully strange film leaves its mark.
Xuanlin Tham (Littlie White Lies)
Director: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
Drive My Car (2021) / Happy Hour (2015)
Writers: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi • Eiko Ishibashi
Main Cast:
| Hitoshi Omika | Takumi |
| Ryô Nishikawa | Hana |
| Ryûji Kosaka | Takahashi |
| Ayaka Shibutani | Mayzumi |
for full cast list, additional technical information and reviews, please visit the Evil Does Not Exist pages in IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes)
Film Notes:
Hopefully, this is one of those films which will linger, “rippling around in the mind” as the Guardian’s film critic Peter Bradshaw found, long after its final scenes.
At first, it’s a cut-and-dried case about corporate capitalism despoiling a pristine environment and ruining the lives of the folk who live in it. Here is Takumi, living with his young daughter Hana in a beautifully unspoilt village, a short drive from Tokyo. This in itself is an issue: are there any ‘idyllic’ such environments anywhere near the major capitals of the world? Discuss! But this is post-pandemic times and the Government is dishing out grants to get companies and the ‘economy’ going again. Ring any bells close to home? Swathes of land are being bought up by a Tokyo company to get this cash for a ‘glamping’ site for well-off city tourists. The septic tank for the site threatens the pristine water supply which Takumi is using for the economy of the village. Could he be ‘exploiting’ the water?
Then the film explores the morally conflicted representatives of the company, two young people sent to smooth over the locals, even offering Takumi himself a job as caretaker on the glamping site. Is everyone a victim: company executives, its paid employees, as well as the local villagers and the apparently ‘untouched’ environment? It would seem that the villagers themselves are ‘interlopers’, part of a government plan to encourage farming after the 2nd world war, itself changing, even ‘damaging’, the environment.
Also there will be director Hamaguchi’s camera work to ponder: the unhurried pace, the camera gazing at the sky for long periods as Takumi walks through the forest, the camera attached to the rear bumper of his car and shuddering away as he collects Hana from school. Those of you who have seen ‘Drive My Car’, Hamaguchi’s 2021, and much longer, road movie, will possibly remember similar unhurried cinematic techniques and style.
If any impressions do ‘linger’ and ‘ripple’ in the aftermath of watching this movie, do let us have them via the reaction slips and/or the website comments.