Ryusuke Hamaguchi came onto the scene for American audiences back in 2021 with his awards juggernaut Drive My Car. He has been an acclaimed director before that though. His latest film Evil Does Not Exist is a bit different than that film but equally as interesting and important. It’s impeccably made by a very capable Japanese director.

Takumi (Hitoshi Omika) is a man who lives a solitary life on the outskirts of his village with his daughter Hana (Ryo Nishikawa). He teaches her the skilled ways of hunting in the woods and learning to differentiate trees and plants and so forth. This all happens adjacent to their home in the surrounding woods. Among the mountains in the region where their village sits. They have a great respect for the wilderness and all its creatures. Harmless or dangerous alike.

When a Glamping company comes calling they are worried that their quite quaint insistence might be in danger. Glamping is a form of camping where people pay a lot of money for a glamorous experience without the real difficulties of what true camping is all about. This type of camping poses a lot of problems for these people who respect the mountains and lands around them. They fear these people won’t do the same as them regarding the land, streams, and mountains.

Hamaguchi is hammering home a message about the environment and trying to preserve the land, water, and air in his home country. As a man who lives in a semi-rural state, I also care about the wilderness, and many waterways: rivers, lakes, and oceans, surrounding my home. Florida is a beautiful state with a lot of wildlife and beautiful scenery. It’s a shame progress has taken over and so much building of roads, apartment buildings, sub-divisions, and shopping developments are now seen as far as the eye can see. I’m getting depressed thinking about it. This film reminded me of how bad this type of thing is and I don’t know how to stop it.

There are a couple of technical aspects that were very well done in this movie. The first is cinematography by Yoshio Kitagawa. He was able to capture the beauty of the hills, streams, and mountains perfectly. This was a gorgeous film to look at from that perspective. He completely sucked me into the area the movie takes place in. The other thing I liked about the movie was the score by Eiko Ishibashi. The music was understated but fit the story very nicely. You don’t have to blow my ears away to make an impression on me and this film did good with an understated score.

Evil Does Not Exist is a good movie with a very good message. It is a tough scene that is very difficult to watch but it serves a purpose in the story Hamaguchi is trying to tell. The performances are good and the score is very good but the cinematography is excellent.  This is a beautiful film to watch. It’s just not as good overall, as Hamaguchi’s last film Drive My Car. That is not a bad thing by any means. He just set such a high bar that it’s hard to reach it. I definitely recommend this movie for the strong environmental message in shares.

4 stars

Dan Skip Allen