A new film by Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car).
A wooded area in Japan and its small-town inhabitants appear to have no great relevance beyond the beauty of the peaceful existence that is shared by the people, the deer, and the trees.
Oh, there’s some talk among friends about an upcoming meeting, but it’s a casual conversation and its potential meaning melds with the unhurried talk of everyone gathered together at the home of Takumi (Hitoshi Omika), who does odd jobs around town. He’s a forgetful sort, sometimes neglecting to pick up his young daughter Hana (Ryo Nishikawa) after school, yet no one seems to be especially worried about her safety when walking home alone.
Directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car), the film slowly establishes the pleasant rhythms of the small town, where humans and animals live in peace and the townsfolk gather gallons of the wonderful local water for cooking delicious meals.
Everything changes, though, at the meeting, which is conducted by Takahashi (Ryuji Kosaka) and Mayuzumi (Ayaka Shibutani), who represent a Tokyo-based company that plans to open a glamping (luxury camping) site on a prime property that is upstream from the town’s residents and their few businesses. Both members of a talent agency, Takahashi and Mayuzume are contractors with little-to-no knowledge of the damage that the project will have upon the town, its residents, its peace and quiet, and its wonderful-tasting water.
The meeting becomes quite charged, even though it’s almost entirely composed of quiet talking and reasonable objections. Somehow, director Hamaguchi builds the tension, as the townsfolk comes to realize that Takahashi and Mayuzumi are hapless puppets who have no idea what they’re talking about, which infuriates the townsfolk, who are not necessarily ready to oppose the project; they just want the development company to make a few very reasonable changes.
The development company, however, is dead set on its urgent course of action, owing to pandemic era-subsidies that are about to run out. That sounds very familiar to everyone in North Texas, since we saw local businesses take advantage of the subsidies offered by the U.S. government without passing the benefits onward to their employees or customers.
As we saw in Drive My Car, director Hamaguchi has an uncanny ability to weave stories that are increasingly fascinating from the most unlikely of sources. The initial sequences of Evil Does Not Exist may prompt the viewer to wonder what, exactly, is going on, but the story gains momentum as it goes, winding up with a conclusion that is likely to leave many perplexed, but not sorry to have spent the time watching a wonderfully mystifying film.
The film opens Friday, May 10, in select area theaters. For more information about the film, visit the official site.
Dallas Film Now. 