Escapism Does Not Exist

Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s newest film, Evil Does Not Exist, has enjoyed plenty of praise since its premiere at the 80th Venice International Film Festival. Initially envisioned as a silent short to accompany a live performance from composer Eiko Ishibashi, Hamaguchi’s theatrical feature is an expansive look at the concentrated images of ecological horror shaped by Ishibashi’s score. Now, the limited-release rollout has granted viewers that yearn for Hamaguchi’s follow-up to Drive My Car another patiently expressive movie from the Japanese filmmaker.

Set in Mizubiki, a village just outside of Tokyo, Evil Does Not Exist follows a widower, Takumi, and the immediate circle of residents around him as Playmode — a relatively small talent agency — attempts to use the nearby forest for a glamping site. Glamorous camping is pitched by Playmode as an attraction that’ll bring tourists to their village so business can boom and residency could blossom. The Mizubiki residents aren’t pleased with the idea because this would come at the cost of contaminating the water supply and obstructing a deer trail. As an added layer of the narrative, Hamaguchi distinguishes the film as being set in a post-pandemic world. With constant references to the pandemic changing small businesses, communities, and even dating, Hamaguchi’s deliberations won’t go unnoticed.

---

Since 2020 it feels like there has been an increase in the amount of films that beg for the audience’s attention to stay fixated on the screen. With the rise of TikTok and various technologies that tether digital devices to every waking moment, it also feels like viewers are more comfortable multi-tasking while something plays on a screen before them. Between Twitch streamers, algorithms, adverts shrinking the ball game to a smaller screen, phones, watches, and VR machines, attention deficits have been spliced at an alarming rate. This goes without mentioning the inclusion of faster playback speeds for those who can’t bear to sit with their entertainment for a full minute.

Now, studios like A24 are also trending toward a more direct and unambiguous palette of entertainment. This doesn’t necessarily mean there aren’t films out there that maintain a stage of thoughtfulness, but it feels like we’re seeing fewer and fewer films like Evil Does Not Exist every year. Maybe my projections are off-base, but Hamaguchi’s newest is a visually striking, quietly prescient, audibly breathtaking, and remarkably ambiguous film. No matter what the landscape looks like around Ryusuke Hamaguchi, he is intent on patiently observing it through his craft to help us explore the natural order of a cinematic reality exclusive to his style.

There is no doubt that a majority of theatrical releases have become less ambiguous. Regardless of how much more satisfying they may be for an audience eager to support their favorite studio’s slate of films, audiences aren’t being provoked as much as they should be. This can be attributed to many films that bear the disguise of escapism as an excuse for ignoring the emotional depths of humanity. Movies — and I’ve contested this for a long time — don’t belong under the umbrella of escapism. Studios are persistent in trying to convince us their films aren’t about anything deeper to make sure the audience has the most fun possible, but it contradicts what films are capable of achieving. ‘Escapism’ is a buzzword, an easier route to ignore the shortcomings of a film because it is attempting to make the audience forget about what’s going on outside the auditorium. Which, if you’ve seen enough films, know that the films we fall in love with reach into us with a near spiritual presence. Our connection to the fabric of the screen is tethered by the emotions we often have a difficult time expressing, and if a film can release them then the medium couldn’t possibly be used as an avenue to escape. Film is quite literally a projection of dramatically heightened experiences, and Evil Does Not Exist is true to that: a bold expression of the ephemeral beauty true to our existence within the natural world, and outward at the corporations expecting to profit from it.

Playmode, the profit hungry company, presents their real estate proposition for the glamping site as following the basic processes of a business transaction. To them, they’ve done just enough by employing representatives, Takahashi and Mayuzumi, to pitch the site to the community, and they’re expecting the villagers to say yes to it without rebuttal. Little does Playmode expect Takumi and the various residents to challenge their attempt to contaminate the water, interfere with the native wildlife, and disrupt the intricate structure of their town.

No matter how many solutions Playmode believes it has to justify its plans for glamping sites, they are directly interfering with nature in a harmful manner. Not only are they obstructing deer trails, but if any guest were to approach a wounded deer they could be harmed by the defensive animal. The septic tank would contaminate the water that runs downstream and infect whichever creature — human or animal — drinks from it. Since the woods are a massive hunting ground, this could also put the guests in the crosshairs of a fatal error. There is too much danger that could be the end result of interfering with the courses of nature at a cost too overwhelming to be a justifiable practice. In a post-pandemic world that saw countless people escape to the outdoors with many places shut down and people out of work, we may have gained a newfound reverence for the inherent beauty of natural life, but the attempts to capitalize on that experience as a “glamorous escape” doesn’t consider the weight of the reality they’re taking for granted.

For the villagers, it is already tough enough to exist in the peripherals of a major city like Tokyo, but Hamaguchi juxtaposes the post-modern infrastructure of a developed metropolis with the laborious self-sufficiency of living in a rural landscape. There’s a sense of community among the residents of Mizubiki who pride themselves on maintaining a way of life true to the relationship with their surroundings, and any sort of impeding factors won’t be taken lightly. The viewer can feel this tension grow with the sudden interruptions of gunfire that seem to draw closer to the residents with each passing day. This repeated interruption is a shade of foreshadowing that Hamaguchi uses to increase the drama without ever directing our eyes toward the source. He asks us to be aware of an unnatural force of nature, one that looms with an interrogative force against the serenity of Mizubuki. There is an uncontrollable behavior that exists beyond the tightly orchestrated harmony of the village, and it is more a sign of natural degradation than the glamping site may be presented as.

Hamaguchi infiltrates Mizubiki through two imposing forces. One is the sound of hunters tracking wildlife, and the other is the blueprints of the glamping site. Initially, the site feels like the more direct conflict of the film, but it’s actually the gunfire that is the impetus for the drama. Hamaguchi will often interrupt the serenity of the film with the echo of a distant rifle. It may not mean much initially because it is so far removed from what we’re seeing on screen, but it is the first hint of Mizubiki becoming a touristy hotspot. Hamaguchi makes it very clear that the residents don’t act out of malice towards the nature and wildlife around them. Each character, through every action, is deliberate and careful, and preserving this manner of life is important to them. On the other hand, the hunters must be from outside the community as we aren’t physically exposed to them. Their ghastly presence is in an immediate conflict with the village because they (like the glamping site) are upsetting the natural order the village is attempting to maintain.

As we lose ourselves in Hamaguchi’s meditative images, the heart-stopping gunfire is an intense interruption of the rhythmic connection we make through Ishibashi’s score. At first, it feels like Hamaguchi may be indulging in his story to a less personal degree, but he is quietly unraveling the threads of connection we inherently have to sight and sound. A low-stakes piano melody overture eases us into the film. The gunfire agitates us. Natural spring water runs through a creek as the wind blows. The sight of freshly cooked noodles and bubbling broth warms our insides. Hamaguchi makes subconscious incisions at every point of the film, and eventually, he reveals a pulsating consciousness that has been lying dormant throughout the film.

When Takahashi and Mayuzumi return to try their hand at hiring Takumi to be the caretaker of the glamping site, Takumi’s daughter, Hana, becomes lost in the woods. In a frantic search, Takumi, the reps, and the villagers search into the night for Hana as gunfire repeatedly punctuates the horror of being unable to find her. Hamaguchi brilliantly implants the idea that Hana has potentially been caught in the crossfire as she was advised to avoid walking into the open field earlier in the film. He is playing into our anticipation of a tragic conclusion, but before then, Hamaguchi transforms the forest into a surrealist nightmare. With the sunlight dimming, the residents waft through the congested acreage calling for Hana, Mayuzumi cuts her hand on a thorny branch and it trickles with blood, and shortly after, Takumi and Takahashi discover Hana in the field. In the brief sequence, Hamaguchi stimulates the themes with an unexpected resolution.

Upon discovering Hana’s body, we’re unsure if she has been shot as they approach her. In a startling sequence, a deer with a bullet wound stares at an upright Hana. The two stare intensely, Hamaguchi cuts between close-ups of Hana and the deer, both existing as innocent creatures reduced by the scope of opportunists. In this moment, humans and nature share the same space with a level of intimacy that reverberates with emotion more than any other sequence throughout the film. Throughout the film Hamaguchi avoids close-ups until he wants to express the intentions of the film in the most effective manner possible. The sequence in which Hana is discovered turns violent as Takumi strangles Takahashi to death in a fit of rage. We’re afforded no close-up as Hamaguchi returns to the observational post we’ve been accustomed to since the beginning. This action is disorienting and borderline inexplicable to the point where it wouldn’t surprise me if anyone were baffled by this contradicting action of Takumi’s character. But this is also why Hamaguchi’s film is so successful.

The title Evil Does Not Exist is an assured and confident statement that wholly contradicts the meaning of the film — that evil, in some capacity, does exist. What Hamaguchi explores in the finale is the dichotomy between nature and its reactionary forces that can never be controlled. As the ending mirrors the beginning, with Takumi racing through the woods with a harmed Hana in his grasp, the heavy breathing and suppressive treetop canopy with Ishibashi’s score faintly humming behind the images turn the film on its head. At this moment it is still unclear if Hana was shot by a hunter or harmed by the gutshot deer, but that answer doesn’t matter. The ambiguity of Hana’s wound, and the violent reaction by Takumi, is a part of the conversation that Hamaguchi wants us to work through as we recall the aspects of the film that develop the mysteries into a respective answer for each of us. Based on our selective interpretation of the film’s material, some of us may come to a different conclusion on the cause of Hana’s wound, but the overarching theme of the movie is that nature is too fragile to be inhabited by the corrosive stream of capital.

This is how Ryusuke Hamaguchi made a film that refutes the idea of escapism as a form of business practice and method of entertainment. With the increase in corporations, companies, and studios trying new projects that act as a response to the uniformed grief and collectively isolated experiences throughout the pandemic, Hamaguchi alludes to a reality we can no longer ignore. The idea that entertainment can be chemically engineered to allow us the opportunity to escape reality does nothing but contaminate our subconscious into believing there is something out there that can diminish a collective experience. At the same time, Hamaguchi doesn’t resolve his film with definite solutions in a neat package to be easily digested. Rather, he feels the need to silently express himself through a translucent construct of nature with the deeper wounds of unanswered questions opening the doors for the viewer to reconstruct the meaning of the film through their own prism.

When it’s all said and done, could Evil Does Not Exist be a simple exercise for Hamaguchi to sample the meditative qualities of becoming one with your immediate environment and what comes of it when disrupted? Certainly, but if we look at the timeliness of Drive My Car as an emotional vehicle passing through the stages of grief in the wake of a post-pandemic world, Hamaguchi is conscious and alert of how these events shape cinematic storytelling. Although there has been some contention that movies distract us from the conditions of life beyond the screen, Hamaguchi provides meaning for those who look at art as a reflection of contemporary circumstances.

There’s a voice within Evil Does Not Exist — a passionate inflection in Hamaguchi’s visual language that allows the audience to explore an escalating conflict between the courses of nature and man’s attempt to control it. Through Takumi, Hamaguchi finds a man at peace with his ability to control his environment, and when infringed upon, he will face a level of instability equal to the dangers his community is faced with. To see the most feral instincts take over a man who has witnessed some stage of horror is breathtaking, and no amount of glamor, wealth, or real estate could possibly blind us from the effects of nature if we were to interfere with them. The same can be said for film. Ballooning budgets, overworked artists, technological advancement at the cost of personal regression, and easy answers to comfortable questions disregards the significance of what is accomplished when art asks us to respond with indescribable feeling over textbook logic. Evil Does Not Exist is not that type of film. It is a film that encourages us to work through our emotional responses as we embrace the opportunity to think of art as a means of living.