EVIL DOES NOT EXIST

Gareth Higgins on EVIL DOES NOT EXIST

Evil Does Not Exist is a misleadingly brilliant title, partly because it suggests a horror film (which it’s not, although that may depend on your definition of the word “horror”), and partly because by saying something does not exist, it makes us think about that very something.

Ryusuke Hamaguchi, director of the magnificent Drive My Car, which explored life as a meditative, tragicomic piece of theater, invited by composer Eiko Ishibashi to work on something more like a live music video has instead made a genuinely profound film about everyday events, some mundane and some terrible, in the Japanese mountain village of Mizubiki. Here, the power dynamics shift apparently every thirty seconds or so. Evil Does Not Exist may be the best-looking and most evocative-sounding film of the year; the color and auditory sensations linger long after it’s over.

Mizubiki is amidst exquisite surroundings, and has a (perhaps deceptively) calm center; the film opens with the kind of imagery and near-wordless sound that establishes the village as the kind of place we might wish to inhabit. Takumi (Hitoshi Omika) does odd jobs around town and in the forest - the fact that this involves literally chopping wood and carrying water is perhaps the only (slightly) unsubtle thing in the movie, which is partly about the ethical considerations of broken hearts, and if authentic spirituality has nothing to say about that, one wonders if it should be listened to on any other matter.