Second Opinion: "Evil Does Not Exist" is the Scariest Wiseman Film You'll Ever See

by Nick Taylor

First, let me say that I enjoyed reading Ben Miller’s less enthusiastic but deeply engaged review of Evil Does Not Exist. I would never have thought to compare this with Aronofsky’s mother!, though as he points out, both films are quite skilled at accumulating tension despite or even because of their unpredictability. He’s also right about the resonance of the ending, which takes the film’s main themes about survival, self-defense, and man’s different awareness of their place in nature and heightens that allegory dramatically. Pondering the finale has made it feel less inscrutable, but that hasn’t dulled its impact in the slightest. 

Rather than editorializing on Ben’s review by saying “umactuallyilikedthatpart” for a few hundred words, I’m going to go deep on one key sequence, talk about why I liked it, and how it exemplifies what I love about Evil Does Not Exist...

Our subject here is the board room presentation which starts roughly a third of the way into the film. The citizens of Mizubiki have convened for some kind of town hall meeting regarding the announcement of a new tourist development. Two PR consultants have been hired by an outside real estate company to present a new “glamping” site that plans to begin construction in a couple months.

It’s supposed to be a formality, but instead the dialogue quickly becomes an interrogation conducted by the villagers. The placement of a septic tank becomes a hot-button issue, along with the meager staffing proposal and a shockingly inadequate explanation of how this new hotel will impact local businesses. Perhaps the most damming indictment comes from a villager who correctly guesses why the glamping site is moving forward with construction on such a rushed timetable despite copious design flaws - or maybe it stings more because that guy clearly seems ready to beat the shit out of the hapless PR guy.

For their part, the consultants are out of their depth, uninformed about key issues and stunned the villagers have anything of substance to say. They have the panicked, reflexive defensiveness of messengers who knows they don’t deserve to be shot and the irritation of a patsy realizing they’ve been set up to take someone else’s fall. Where the hell are the glamping site architects who are actually going to run the business? Where are the village officials who must have agreed to this deal in the first place, seemingly without letting any of their citizens know about it until this very moment? As the meeting progresses, the consultants grow increasingly empathetic to the townspeople’s frustrations. When they end the meeting saying they’ll report the many, many issues noted to the business’s CEO, you believe them.

Everything about this description reads like Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s take on a classic Frederick Wiseman boardroom scene. Depending on the viewer this already sounds riveting or deathly dull, yet his direction and staging gives this scene an unnerving edge. Nothing about the lighting makes the meeting room look unduly menacing, but every cut makes the conversation they're all having seem even more tense. Shot placements ably communicate a character's intensity, their confidence in delivering their message, and whether anyone else in the room is on their side. Camaraderie among the townspeople is conveyed cinematically along with their applause and support for each other in the meeting.

Although our ostensible protagonist (Hitoshi Omika) is a participant in the meeting, Evil Does Not Exist doesn’t center him as a leading voice amongst the villagers or a reactive figure to guide the audience. The camera and editing setups keep us firmly outside of any one character’s POV, instead letting every new face lead the film for the few minutes they have to say their piece. Each of these roles is cast and dressed with enough individuality that we could feasibly expect to return to them in the future, be it in the very next shot or half an hour from now. In tone and pacing, Evil Does Not Exist has maintained the energy of a horror movie purely through its aesthetic choices, as though some unspoken dread has overwhelmed the film before it ever started. 

As Ben already said, Evil Does Not Exist is a strange, subtle film. The dichotomy of pastoral and modern living is drawn out within a fairly unpredictable plot. Clarity of intent has clearly allowed Hamaguchi the creative space required to make such a self-consciously different project after Driive My Car. I've read other reviews call Evil Does Not Exist "minor" relative to that masterwork, and though I don't think I agree wholeheartedly with that label, it at least gets at how different this film feels from its director's earlier outings. It's very much its own beast, lying in wait for folks to come across it and very, very ready to meet them head-on.

Evil Does Not Exist is currently expanding its limited theatrical release across the US.