The idea of good and evil is pervasive in most of society. From fairy tales to modern day media, we despise villains who wreak havoc and worship heroic protagonists who in turn defeat the evil and save the day. Morality – defining what is good and what is evil – transcends different philosophies, cultures, and religions. However, is morality as black and white as we think it is? What, exactly, is the definition of evil? And does evil exist?
Ryusuke Hamaguchi, director of the critically acclaimed Drive My Car, took a stab at this question in his latest work, Evil Does Not Exist. I had the opportunity to see it as a limited release at the Roxie Theatre on Valencia Street, a brilliant indie cinema in San Francisco that I urge everyone to visit at least once. The film follows a single father, Takumi, living in a rural Japanese village, and how a “glamping” project helmed by city dwellers begin to disrupt the lives of villagers and the place they live in. And what a breathtaking movie this was.
Firstly, the film is technically masterful. Hamaguchi employs a distinctly purposeful directing style that some, perhaps many, might deem utterly boring or drudgingly slow. Having seen Drive My Car in 2021, which clocked to about 3 hours but never felt like its length, I was mentally prepared for a slow-moving watch. Indeed, Hamaguchi mainly opts for long shots and few edits here. For example, the 5-minute opening scene solely depicts a tracking shot of the forested sky, paired with a stirring string orchestral piece by Eiko Ishibashi. In other moments, we quietly follow Takumi assisting a couple in collecting spring water for their soba restaurant. By creating the space for viewers to observe through long shots, I felt as if I was truly seeing, noticing every detail in their actions and formulating reasons why they do what they do.
Evil’s story is simple, but hard to digest upon first viewing. You could summarize it as such: Takumi, the father, is an odd-job worker who, according to the villagers, knows plenty about the surrounding nature. He raises his daughter, Hana, alone, and seems to be a little absent-minded when it comes to picking her up from school. Soon, we see that a Tokyo-based agency announces a new glamping development in the village, and the agency has little regard for the village and the negative environmental impact that the project could inflict onto nature. Naturally, the villages express their dissent, but the agency could not care less. The agency must be the evil one, right? Yet as the film progresses, that moral dichotomy begins to blur as we see what Hamaguchi implies through the title – that evil does not exist, but whatever is done to nature – be it shooting deer or setting up an ecotourism site – nature may do back to you blindly, and without any grasp of morality.
It made sense to me, to learn after watching the movie that Hamaguchi had initially intended to make a 30-min short film without dialogue as accompaniment to Ishibashi’s live score. Ishibashi’s score was absolutely essential to evoking tension in Evil; the opening track reappears like a leitmotif at pivotal moments of the movie, often making it hard for me to breathe. And Hamaguchi saved the most shocking twist for last, the scene still lingering in my mind while I try to understand what happened, and what really happened.
Though the film’s themes of morality exist beyond environmentalism, I could not help but compare them directly to how climate change has affected California. California is home to many natural wonders, but the state has also been hit badly by climate change, with sea level rises, forest fires, and habitat destruction rampant across the strip in the last ten years. Those who exacerbate climate change, many of whom akin to the Tokyo agency in Evil, may not feel the direct impact of it. But climate-vulnerable residents do; it is simply how nature brings balance to imbalance, without discernment. Perhaps it is wise to be fearful of nature, and tread carefully.
