It feels like ages since I last watched a movie, and the one I saw was Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Evil Does Not Exist.” The story revolves around a proposed glamping facility project in a beautiful highland town, initiated by a talent agency with a rather sloppy plan to secure government subsidies. It focuses on the interactions between the worried townspeople, the talent agency staff struggling between the residents’ concerns and their boss’s demands, and the protagonist parent and child.
The plot is quite simple, and at first glance, it might seem like a typical “talent agency equals evil” kind of story. However, the film carries an indescribably unsettling atmosphere right from the beginning. Both the townspeople and the agency staff have their own complex situations, making it impossible to simply categorize them as good or evil. What’s more, the movie’s ending is so open to interpretation that you’re left wondering what just happened, and the credits roll by incredibly fast. I left the cinema feeling utterly bewildered, thinking, “Wait, what was that?” It was a truly strange film.
I remembered that at the beginning of the movie, it was mentioned that this film was created simultaneously while shooting footage for a live performance called “GIFT.” This made me curious about how such a uniquely unsettling and perplexing film was made, so I bought the pamphlet and read it.
At the beginning of the pamphlet, Director Hamaguchi contributed an essay titled “A Strange and Fun Journey,” and it was quite interesting – I felt it really got to the root of that disjointed feeling I experienced throughout the movie. He described “GIFT” and “Evil Does Not Exist” as an experimental ground where the work of each cast and crew member was brought together and mixed, and then certain accidental lines that emerged from that process became the story itself. The pamphlet shares various specific anecdotes about this. In addition to being a film born from such an unplanned, non-harmonious process, the story itself isn’t a simple good-vs-evil narrative. It makes you really ponder the title “Evil Does Not Exist,” revealing a reality that isn’t neatly organized or harmonious. When you think about it, this kind of situation is commonplace in both our work and personal lives, and that’s what makes it so fascinating. Of course, because of these complexities, sometimes you just want to watch a simple, easy-to-understand movie to feel refreshed, but personally, I really enjoy films that leave you with such a unique lingering impression.
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