At three hours, writer-director Ryusuke Hamaguchi was able to turn Drive My Car’s deliberate pacing into an asset, transforming its complex, humanistic, lo-fi exploration of grief and forgiveness into a quiet epic. Why then is his follow up, Evil Does Not Exist, occasionally such a bore, gorgeous as it may be, when it clocks in at little more than half his previous effort’s runtime?
Beauty is key, however. The film looks great as the camera lingers on modest creeks, snow-covered woods, and the occasional deer. Visual pleasantries still only take one so far, as much of the first act is spent watching our lead, Takum (Hitoshi Omika), do outdoorsy chores on the mountainside near the small Japanese town he calls home. We’ll eventually find out he’s a single father taking care of Hana (Ryo Nishikawa) while accepting most odd jobs the townsfolk ask of him. Dialogue may not be necessary for telling a story, but Hamaguchi doesn’t use the silence of his natural landscapes effectively enough to tell us something about this character. There’s a lot of looking at him but not a lot of learning about him.
When the plot and its cheeky approach to environmentalism eventually click into place, Evil Does Not Exist suddenly comes vibrantly alive for one long scene. Two representatives, Takahashi (Ryuji Kosaka) and Mayuzumi (Ayaka Shibutani), from a Tokyo-based company that wants to build a “glamping” resort on the mountainside host a town hall with residents to get their input. After they play a video explaining the meaning of glamping (the film’s most fun dive into its anti-capitalist core), the townsfolk slowly and semi-politely tear their pitch to shreds over practical and preservation concerns. The scene is the highlight of the film. Hamaguchi’s use of pauses to wring out character-focused comedy is a joy to see unfold, and the environmentalist message does help the seemingly endless shots of nature that came before feel at least thematically important.
Afterwards, the film finally settles into more a more consistent groove, with Takahashi and Mayuzumi trying to win the town over while also becoming more ingrained in its natural allure. What follows is a just-healthy-enough combination of what came before: naturalistic photography and well-written sequences that sport more strong comedic timing and corporate satire. Kosaka ends up being the highlight of the cast, playing through the fish-out-of-water story well and lending the film an entertainment value it had been missing from its disappointingly dull lead.
Still, Evil Does Not Exist’s anti-capitalist wonders aren’t quite enough to help the pacing get where it needs to be. The second half of the film makes better use of Hamaguchi’s decidedly slow approach, but the story and its themes are still too simplistic at that point to warrant such glacial storytelling. Thankfully, a rousing and surprisingly bleak climax sends the film in a different and unexpected direction. There’s a shocking eye-for-an-eye exchange, at least partially forced by nature itself, that paints much of the film in a different light. Hamaguchi’s presentation here helps challenge the viewer to consider a greater degree of depth than the film had suggested for most of its hour-forty-five runtime. Too bad then that revisiting Evil Does Not Exist sounds like such a chore.
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