悪は存在しない
Drama
Japan
Language: Japanese
Subtitles: English and Czech
Directing: Ryusuke Hamaguchi
Starring: Hitoshi Omika, Ryo Nishikawa, Ryuji Kosaka, Ayaka Shibutani
Distributor: m-appeal
Japanese film master Ryusuke Hamaguchi has been on the Czech audience’s radar for several years now, but it was his magical Drive My Car that brought him the most attention in 2022. His latest film Evil Does Not Exist completely amazed the jury at the 80th Venice Festival where it was awarded the Silver Lion. The complex story, as the title suggests, shows everything but the fight between Good and Evil.
Life in the village of Mizubiki is turned upside down by a developer’s plan to build a glamping site that could disrupt the local water system. The delicate ecosystem is under threat and the residents decide to fight back. But Hamaguchi does not use this backdrop to play out a didactic confrontation between a good village and an evil corporation. Instead, he operates exclusively in the grey zone of ambiguous solutions and subtly exposes layers of social and environmental inequalities that are universally relatable. None of the characters can be reduced to a single trait or caricature. A sleazy salesman may express admiration for a beautiful region, and a villager can exhibit covert business appetites.
Evil Does Not Exist is a triumph of nuanced storytelling and conveys a myriad of different perspectives. It guides the spectators through a complex quasi-crime, gradually revealing pieces of information only to make them feel lost a few minutes later. Hamaguchi is a precise director who works with pacing magnificently. Corporate meetings are dynamic action sequences, while everyday life flows peacefully as the surface of a stream. Hamaguchi changes pace as the narrative demands to take the viewers exactly where he needs. The Japanese film event of the year!
