The Silent Pulse of the Forest: An In-Depth Look at Hamaguchi Ryusuke’s Evil Does Not Exist

In the landscape of contemporary international cinema, few directors have mastered the tension between the mundane and the metaphysical as deftly as Hamaguchi Ryusuke. Following the global acclaim of Drive My Car (2021)—a film that catapulted him into the pantheon of global auteurs—Hamaguchi returned with Evil Does Not Exist, a work that strips away the urban artifice of his previous dramas to confront the haunting, indifferent silence of the natural world. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2023 Venice Film Festival, the film serves as both a meditation on ecological fragility and a subversion of the "corporate versus community" narrative trope.

The Genesis of an Eco-Fable

The film’s origins are as organic as the forest it depicts. Rather than a traditional screenplay-first approach, Evil Does Not Exist emerged from a collaborative experiment with composer Ishibashi Eiko. After the exhausting press cycle for his Academy Award-winning Drive My Car, Hamaguchi sought a period of creative hibernation. However, a request from Ishibashi to create a visual component for her live musical performance—a project eventually titled Gift—pulled him back into the fold.

"I had no idea how I’d make something for a live performance," Hamaguchi admits. "My starting point was the fact that I wouldn’t have to create any sound, since the performance was already doing that."

As he began scouting locations in the mountainous border regions of Japan’s Yamanashi and Nagano prefectures, the visual material he captured began to outgrow the scope of a mere musical accompaniment. The footage, centered on the quiet, stoic routines of a handyman named Takumi (played by Hitoshi Omika), possessed a narrative gravity that necessitated a feature-length exploration. With Ishibashi’s blessing, Hamaguchi expanded the material into Evil Does Not Exist, a standalone film that functions as a dark mirror to the silent, atmospheric Gift.

Chronology of a Conflict: The Anatomy of "Glamping"

The narrative structure of Evil Does Not Exist is deceptively simple. Takumi, a widower living in the remote village of Mizubiki, sustains himself through the rhythmic, physical labor of chopping wood and harvesting spring water for the local udon shop. His life is defined by a deep, symbiotic relationship with the wilderness—a connection that is abruptly threatened by the arrival of two representatives from a Tokyo talent agency.

The city-dwellers arrive to pitch a "glamping" project—a luxury camping site designed to offer urbanites a sanitized, convenient version of nature. The ensuing conflict is not a melodramatic clash of good versus evil, but rather a study in fundamental misunderstandings.

• The Arrival: The corporate representatives are presented as fish out of water, armed with sloppy plans that ignore the ecological reality of the village, particularly the impact of waste disposal on the local water supply.
• The Town Hall Meeting: This sequence, perhaps the film’s centerpiece, echoes the long-form, dialogue-heavy scenes that have become a Hamaguchi trademark. It is here that the film shifts from personal observation to a systemic critique of modern development.
• The Resolution: Eschewing a conventional climax, the film concludes with an ambiguity that leaves the audience unsettled, reflecting the "grand indifference" of nature itself.

Supporting Data: The Method Behind the Mystery

Hamaguchi’s filmmaking process is famously rigorous, often involving non-professional actors and a technique he calls "the reading"—where actors repeat their lines in a flat, emotionless tone until the dialogue is internalized.

In Evil Does Not Exist, this method proves particularly effective with Hitoshi Omika. Originally a crew member on Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (2021) who served as a driver during Hamaguchi’s research phase, Omika’s transition to the lead role was serendipitous. "When I was going around doing research, Hitoshi was the driver," Hamaguchi explains. "I had him do the stand-ins. That’s when I realized he has a great face."

The "Bressonian" quality of the acting—where the delivery is restrained and direct—creates a stark contrast between the rural inhabitants and the urban interlopers. While the Tokyo representatives speak with the performative, jargon-filled cadence of corporate culture, Takumi and his neighbors speak with the weight of experience.

The inclusion of a child character—Takumi’s daughter—further complicates the film’s emotional landscape. Hamaguchi, who has rarely worked with child actors, noted that he allowed his young lead the freedom to act authentically, highlighting the contrast between the rigid social conditioning of the adults and the natural, uninhibited presence of the child.

Official Perspectives: Hamaguchi on the "Glamping" Industry

When questioned about his portrayal of the glamping industry, Hamaguchi is careful to avoid simple moralizing. While he admits to finding the premise of "glamping" inherently contradictory, he does not view his characters through a lens of malice.

"It’s not that I have an animosity toward the glamping industry," he says, "but I think something about the activity is about extraction and prioritizing what’s convenient for urban people; they’re shaving off what’s inconvenient about nature. Yet camping is supposed to be about inhabiting nature, the good and the bad and all the difficulties that come with living outside of civilization."

Hamaguchi acknowledges his own complicity as an urban filmmaker entering a rural space. By positioning himself as an outsider observing the local traditions—such as the specific way the village respects the flow of spring water—he imbues the film with a self-reflexive quality. He admits that he, like the city characters he depicts, initially approached the environment with a degree of ignorance that had to be corrected through direct labor, such as chopping wood and gathering water himself.

Implications: The Indifference of Nature

The title, Evil Does Not Exist, serves as the film’s ultimate thesis. In the forest, there is no moral calculus. A predator does not kill out of malice, and a forest does not provide water out of altruism. The conflict arises only when human systems—capitalism, convenience, and urban entitlement—attempt to impose a rigid, binary morality on an ecosystem that functions on entirely different principles.

By aligning his cinematography with the chilling beauty of the winter landscape, Hamaguchi evokes the spirit of his former teacher, Kurosawa Kiyoshi. Like Kurosawa’s Charisma (2000), the film suggests that the "evil" in the world is not a person or a corporation, but the failure of humans to recognize their own limitations in the face of nature.

Summary of Key Themes

• Ecological Awareness: The film moves beyond surface-level environmentalism to explore the deep, structural disconnect between city life and the rural realities of water and land use.
• The Ethics of Labor: Through the repetitive, physically demanding tasks of the protagonist, Hamaguchi emphasizes the dignity of work that is rooted in the physical world.
• The Limitations of Communication: The dialogue-heavy town hall meeting demonstrates how language is often used to obfuscate rather than clarify, especially when power dynamics are unequal.

Ultimately, Evil Does Not Exist is a haunting departure for Hamaguchi. It is a film that demands patience, rewarding the viewer with a profound sense of "moody contemplation." By turning his lens away from the intimate rooms of his previous works and toward the vast, uncaring canopy of a winter forest, Hamaguchi has created a work that feels less like a narrative and more like a warning—a reminder that while we may try to master the world, the world remains, in its sublime, cold, and beautiful way, completely untouched by our definitions of good and evil.