Evil doesn't exist (?). Director Ryusuke Hamaguchi 's new film depicts the increasingly muddied balance between good and evil.

Director Ryusuke Hamaguchi 's long-awaited new film, "Evil Doesn't Exist," is now in theaters. The film won the Silver Lion (Jury Grand Prix) at last year's Venice International Film Festival. Although it was released overseas first, it was not available in Japan for a while, and many movie fans have been eagerly awaiting it.

Meanwhile, last fall at the Tokyo FILMeX film festival, another of his new works, "GIFT," was screened in advance with an improvised performance by Eiko Ishibashi, who also composed the music for "Drive My Car." In fact, these two works were originally born out of a request from Ishibashi to create footage for a live performance.

So Hamaguchi shot "Evil Doesn't Exist" using traditional production methods, and then used that footage to create a new silent film, "GIFT."

"The truth is, it's hard to say which came first. In the end, we worked on them almost simultaneously, using the same material, so to me, they're like twin works."

Unlike the regular theatrical screening of "Evil Doesn't Exist," the screening of "GIFT" will be an event-style screening with live performance by Ishibashi.

"Ishibashi, being Ishibashi, I think he is performing in a sort of session with the video 'GIFT,' but the video was created with the hope that it would continue to be a kind of invitation, or even a provocation, to Ishibashi, asking how he would play."

"Evil Does Not Exist" is a film that depicts the story of a fictional small town in the Nagano highlands where Takumi and his daughter Hana live peaceful lives, but then suddenly plans to build a glamping facility emerge, causing unrest among the residents who are concerned about the danger it poses to the water source and the ecosystem of the animals.

Hamaguchi says that the idea to make an independent film called "Evil Doesn't Exist," which is not silent but has audible dialogue, came during filming.

"Initially, what I wanted to capture in this film was very visual. For example, people in nature, or the human body. For me, having someone speak lines is also a process of directing the body. There is a scene in the middle of the film where the contractor gives an explanation to the residents about the glamping facility, and we shot that on about the third or fourth day. The explanation scene is where each character really comes to life, so I thought it would be easier for everyone to act if I did it first, so I scheduled the shoot that way.

This is partly because I had the actors do it over and over again, but everyone's voices got more and more amazing during the briefing scene. I felt it would be a shame not to let them hear these voices. If I was going to let them hear it, it wouldn't be a live performance by Ishibashi, so I had a feeling from that time on that I wanted to complete it as a separate film."

Don't lie about your principles of action

As symbolized by the conflict at the briefing session, some might imagine a simple conflict between the contractors as "evil" and the residents as "good" from the title, but Hamaguchi's film is not one that fits such a simple structure.

"Despite the title, I don't actually think much about good and evil when I'm portraying people. The characters in my stories have a code of conduct, and it would be strange if someone who did this did that. That comes from my own physical sensations, too. I feel that if I create characters without lying to that code of conduct, then the idea of good and evil naturally becomes muddier.

If I do that properly, I think an indecipherable being, neither good nor evil, will emerge, so that's how I'll build the character."

One of these characters, the lead role of Takumi, was played by Omiga Hitoshi, who is also involved with Hamaguchi's production staff.

"He's usually a bit softer, but when he was acting as a stand-in (a person who acts in place of an actor to decide where they should stand during preparatory work for filming), and he remained expressionless, he had a frightening quality that you don't usually feel. This guy might be scary if he doesn't speak (laughs). That mysterious presence is the reason I cast him."

While depicting humans in this way, the film is also rich in depictions of nature, such as spring water, wasabi that symbolizes the purity of the water, and the corpse of a deer lying in the forest, and there are many shots throughout that will be fresh even to eyes accustomed to Hamaguchi's previous works.

"The deer bones are real. The assistant director found them and we filmed them while praying together. When you're filming in nature, the cycle of life and death is naturally more visible than in the city. Land wasabi can be found in places where the water is flowing and clean. Usually, wasabi blooms near water, but land wasabi grows in moist soil a little further away.

And if you go further, trees grow. The trees grow and the deer eat the bark of those trees. Sometimes the deer invade human territory, so hunting occurs, and the deer are killed by the hunters - that's the cycle that exists in that land. That's what I began to see during my research."
　
Then, towards the end of the film, the tone changes completely as night falls on the surrounding forest, and darkness descends.

"As I was doing my research, it gradually got darker, and in the areas where light doesn't reach, it eventually became pitch black in the forest in that area. It was so cold, and I felt like even an adult would be in danger if they got lost there.

I thought that this would naturally create suspense, so at that point I could see the skeleton of the story, the general outline of someone going missing and someone else going to search for them. So I thought that this is how the story would turn out in the end."

The film then suddenly reaches a shocking climax that may leave the viewer confused.

"The basic premise is that it's open to interpretation however you like. But rather than simply thinking of it as absurd, I wrote and filmed it with a strange sense of satisfaction. Ultimately, what everyone takes away from that scene is something like an eruption of violence that lies dormant within each individual. This is clearly present, at least in the film. Naturally, I think the audience will have a strong desire to see it as evil.

However, this film has the title "Evil Doesn't Exist." The audience is forbidden to simply see it as evil as they watch. I made the film with the idea that the moment when the tension between the title and the content is at its highest is an experience that is interesting."

Another work made from the same footage: "GIFT"

This video work by Ryusuke Hamaguchi was created using footage from "Evil Doesn't Exist." It is completed with live improvisations by Eiko Ishibashi. It is scheduled to be performed in Udine, Italy, New York, and Chicago from April to May 2024.