Evil Does Not Exist (Aku wa sonzai shinai)

 

Director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi

Hamaguchi with Eiko Ishibashi

EVIL DOES NOT EXIST (Aku wa sonzai shinai)    B+                                                       Japan  (105 mi)  2023  d: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize (2nd Place) at the Venice Film Festival, where it also won a FIPRESCI Prize, and also Best Film at the London Festival, this is a peacefully contemplative film about the toxic human footprint left behind in the natural world, resulting in unintended consequences, becoming a parable about the balance of nature.  Shot in the mountainous region of Nagano, Japan, site of the 1998 Winter Olympics, this is that rare Japanese film where the distant mountains looming in the background overshadow the human presence, formed millions of years ago, as nature literally dwarfs the existence of mankind.  Hamaguchi has become one of more consistently fascinating and artistically daring new directors working today, where his films are absolutely precise, and are the reason we go to the theaters, starting out making a trilogy of low-budget documentaries on the lives of those who were affected by the 2011 Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster which caused more than 10,000 deaths, the worst in Japanese history, where the collective consciousness of the nation was literally left numb from the trauma.  He then expanded into some of the more innovative arthouse features of the last decade, 2017 Top Ten List #1 Happy Hour (Happî Awâ) (2015), a sprawling yet intimate five-hour film about four women in their mid-30’s whose lives are upended by a series of personal struggles, Asako I & II (Netemo sametemo) (2018), an eerie yet touching love story, 2021 #10 Film of the Year Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (Gûzen to sôzô), an anthology of three short films dealing broadly with themes of love and loss, and finally his most acclaimed work, winning the Academy Award for Best International Film, 2022 Top Ten List #1 Drive My Car (Oraibu mai kâ), an elegiac film about love and mourning.  Working again with musical composer Eiko Ishibashi, who scored Hamaguchi’s last film, this couldn’t be more radically different, as it was originally conceived as a live orchestration, with Ishibashi asking the director to provide silent video footage to play during her performance, weaving together a mosaic-like integration of sound and image, where it was first intended to be a 30-minute short, but expanded into the hour-long film GIFT (2024).  Having lived entirely in urban environments, Hamaguchi visited Ishibashi at her studio in the countryside and was struck by the sweeping landscapes and how nature flows through the community, becoming the inspiration behind the film, shot near the area where she lives, with Hamaguchi adding dialogue and turning this into a highly concentrated film that thinks and encourages reflection.  Having been taught by filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa in graduate school, Hamaguchi was struck by how his films, especially in the 90’s when he was most prolific, had very unclear endings or were left unresolved, yet left a deep impact on viewers.  In a choice follow-up to Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days (2023), Hamaguchi revisits the Japanese concept of Komorebi, the shadowplay of sunlight through the leaves, opening and closing the film with long, wordless tracking shots of the camera gazing up into the wintry canopy of trees high above in a style resembling the spatial, three-dimensional aesthetic of a 3D camera, where it feels like the camera is literally floating in air.  Visually this feels like an overt reference to Carl Theodor Dreyer’s VAMPYR (1932) where the protagonist is awake to witness his own burial, cognizant of all he sees, with the camera providing his viewpoint looking up while lying inside his coffin, placed on a horse-drawn cart on the ride to the cemetery, seeing the leaves of trees overhead.  That film was also shot as a silent film, but utilizes basic elements of sound.  The film reflects the Chinese principle of Yin and Yang that presupposes an existential perfection carried exactly by two poles, light and dark, where one cannot exist without the other.  Shot by Yoshio Kitagawa, accompanied by the calm yet richly textured music by Ishibashi that slowly grows more dissonant, Hamaguchi creates a meditative montage that is fully immersed in the surrounding natural world, where the simple everyday life is not easy, having to work hard for basic necessities, finding poetry on a small scale, trying to get the maximum out of slowly accumulating atmosphere, with long settings, crisp pictures, and above all, silence. 

Set in Harasawa, a fictional village in the idyllic quiet of the woods with a few thousand inhabitants, it resembles an Eden-like existence or eco-paradise, where the slow-moving film exudes a meditative calm, allowing viewers to identify with an established rhythm of life, yet the title alone exudes a sense of dread and foreboding, suggesting something terrible is about to happen.  The tranquility of the remote region is quickly established in the slow, near wordless immersion of outdoor scenes, as 8-year-old Hana (Ryô Nishikawa) is seen cheerfully playing alone in the snow while her more industrious father, Takumi (Hitoshi Omika, an assistant director from an earlier film, also a driver on the set), is noisily working with a chainsaw to cut large chunks of firewood, which he then chops into smaller pieces with an axe, collecting them into a wheelbarrow before stacking them in a woodpile next to an alpine chalet.  Smoke can be seen coming out of the chimney from a wood-burning stove keeping the interior warm.  The first spoken words come more than ten minutes into the film as Takumi, a taciturn handyman in the village, is seen gathering fresh spring water, placing them into large containers, where he and his friend Kazuo (Hiroyuki Miura) haul them up to his truck for use in an udon noodle shop, claiming the soba noodles taste so much better when boiled in spring water.  But he’s struck by the discovery of a patch of wild wasabi growing alongside the path, where the pungent taste is a welcome addition to evening meals.  This secluded routine of harmony and peace is upended by the announcement that Playmode, a Tokyo corporation, has recently purchased centrally located real estate with the intention of turning the grounds into high-end glamping campsites, luring rich city folk to seek refuge of a pristine natural environment that may end up upsetting the natural ecological balance of the region.  Guided by an impromptu town hall presentation from Takahashi (Ryuji Kosaka) and Mayuzumi (Ayaka Shibutani), improbable spokespersons who are actually hired from a talent agency, the locals immediately spot problems in their proposal, rushing the plans of construction with a use it or lose it push to beat expiring Covid-relief subsidies, poking holes in their promise to deliver economic benefits, only to be met with some shameful corporate stonewalling, offering little more than empty platitudes as all their worst fears are confirmed.  In a collision of two entirely different worlds, Playmode has no idea about the fragile ecosystem that currently exists, discovering the plot of land they’ve chosen is on a deer trail, yet they intend to forge ahead anyway and bulldoze the land for their project, introducing septic tank sewage systems that will contaminate the freshwater springs, which they’re not concerned about, thinking the damage will be minimal.  Residents implore them to understand how damage introduced upstream makes its way to residents downstream, and may be irreversible.  While there are a variety of points of view in this culture clash, including the risk of fires and disturbing the migration patterns of wildlife, most are expressed in a calm, rational manner, with the residents offering intelligent reasons why they have chosen to live there, as it offers benefits that don’t exist in the big cities.  They don’t want to see that lost in a capitalist zeal for quick profits, sweeping aside local input while prioritizing what’s convenient for urban people, as the pollutant damage could affect generations long afterwards.  In an exaggerated sense, these are good versus evil arguments, where Japan, perhaps more than any other nation, has been cognizant of ecological impact, as they’re the only country on earth to have survived the deadly radiation effects of a nuclear blast, and the catastrophic effects were horrific.  Seeing the modern world encroaching on the natural is a theme many fans of Miyazaki and Ghibli Studio will recognize.  What’s cleverly revealed is the new corporate face of evil hides behind a subterfuge of lies and deceit, making promises they can’t keep, hiding behind an illusion of community spirit and good faith, pretending the feedback elicited will actually change their plans in the future, yet all that really matters is good old-fashioned greed.     

Politeness is an ingrained cultural aspect of Japanese society, yet this is an angry film, one that suggests the future is bleak, where the placid surface hides the boiling resentment bubbling below, like a volcanic force to be reckoned with that no one ever sees, but can erupt at any moment.  Traditional filmmaking does not look like this, where Hamaguchi refuses to repeat himself and is constantly challenged to seek new directions.  While the driving force behind the film is actually the ambient score by Eiko Ishibashi, Hamaguchi seamlessly recontextualizes the music and GIFT into a final version of what is clearly an art film, which is not for everyone, and should not be evaluated like any other movie, as it’s difficult to grasp how tireless yet aesthetically demanding the director is in presenting the story.  Without political moralizing, the film is not a didactic plea for environmental protection like Kelly Reichardt’s Night Moves (2013), but is instead a supposition, an interpretation, suggesting nothing in nature is evil, while shades of good and evil exist in the humanity of mankind, with the film setting a philosophical-ethical equation, delving into questions of morality and guilt, and how innocence can also become guilty without the dark force of evil intruding.  With precise shots, Hamaguchi creates a quiet, slightly threatening mood, creating an abrupt yet beguiling ending that is completely unexpected, and not altogether comprehensible, where certainly part of the allure is you don’t really need to understand to appreciate the beauty of it, where the last 5-minutes are simply mesmerizing.  Even the director has acknowledged that he still wasn’t sure what the film meant to him.  This is a challenge of a different order where viewers need to realize just how unlike this is from other films, a metaphorical exercise where the enigmatic finale has confounded audiences and left them mystified, as the bizarre events seen happening onscreen are simultaneously blended with a recollection of what happened previously, all taking place in the imagination, so you not only wonder what it all means, but you also wonder what the hell just happened, as it’s specifically designed so you can’t really tell what’s going on.  Shot in a fog-like mist, growing mythical to the core, sinister gunshots can be heard echoing from the forest, suggesting hunters are nearby, yet this turns into a dreamlike landscape that is utterly perplexing, a strange twist of fate that may actually play out exclusively on a subconscious level, perhaps entering the psychological mindset of a wounded animal in the woods, like the animal dream sequences of Ildikó Enyedi’s On Body and Soul (Teströl és lélekröl) (2021), where the meaning is more metaphorically suggestive than real.  But it has that kind of primal instinct fury, born out of desperation and arising out of grim circumstances, as death lingers like a shroud of darkness, completely altering the landscape.  It feels like a cautionary tale, something along the lines of There but for the grace of God go I, as morality and good intentions are thrown out the window if they come too late, leading to apocalyptic implications, where those that abuse the earth may face the wrath of nature, which may not sit silently.  What’s truly curious is how the realist, straightforward style suddenly morphs into a surrealist day of reckoning that we must face if we open that Pandora’s Box.  Takumi serves as the medium, as he exists in human form, but also deeply communes with nature, where he embodies that spiritual connection, at one with the trees, the wind, the water, and the animals, where they are inseparable.  Yet Takumi regularly forgets to pick up his daughter from school, so she exerts her self-reliant independence and typically chooses to walk home through the woods alone, which can be a precarious adventure veering into a Grimm Brother’s fairy tale, as the forest can be fraught with danger, despite all the beauty, where we seem to be transported into the wilderness of a parallel universe.  The lush, hypnotic score that accompanies the darkly haunting finale provides a key, featuring an anxious turn into something more meditative and somber, offering a disconsolate mood with no relief, where we feel the weight of frustration inside an enveloping bleakness, as we return once again to another Komorebi sequence in the trees, this time against a darker sky.  The existential ambiguity we’re left with does not happen often in films, yet must be praised when handled with such a deft hand, as we’re left with no answers, just a sublime journey into the melancholic abyss.     

Perfect Days

 

Director Wim Wenders

PERFECT DAYS         B                                                                                                         Japan  Germany  (124 mi)  2023  d: Wim Wenders

Next time is next time.  Now is now.                                                                                                —Hirayama (Kōji Yakusho)

While this contemplative existential study has the imprint of a Wim Wenders film, known for his meditative explorations of alienation and longing, and for making extremely literate films with carefully chosen rock ‘n’ roll music, and a lifelong love for the Kinks, as his graduation thesis film, SUMMER IN THE CITY (1970), shot on 16mm by longtime Wenders collaborator Robby Müller, was notable for its continuous use of Kinks music.  Many are proclaiming this is a return to form, a throwback to his earlier films, and while there are obvious parallels, it lacks the freedom of movement of his earlier 70’s and 80’s films, where an endless landscape became a central character that dominated the screen.  With its more compressed Tokyo setting, it recalls the Japanese odyssey explored in Tokyo-Ga (1985), an observational travelogue that pays tribute to the unhurried ruminations of Yasuhirō Ozu.  A graduate of the University of Television and Film Munich in 1970, Wenders worked as a film critic for various publications while he was still in school, and while he is a major figure in the New German Cinema movement from the 60’s to the 80’s, an era when most German films were subsidized by state television, Wenders is perhaps less known than his towering compatriots Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Werner Herzog, and while his films may be less radical, they have an equally distinctive style, coming closer to the everyday, while also more alienated and detached.  The protagonists in Wim Wenders films tend to be on the literary side, like Bruno Winter (Rüdiger Vogler) from Kings of the Road (Im Lauf der Zeit) Road Trilogy Pt. 3 (1976), who periodically can be seen reading William Faulkner’s 1939 novel The Wild Palms, with its infamous closing line, “Between grief and nothing I will take grief.”  In Wenders’ new film starring Kōji Yakusho, long associated with the works of Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the protagonist is also seen reading Faulkner’s The Wild Palms, along with other books, including Aya Kōda’s Ki, and a collection of Patricia Highsmith’s short stories.  Amusingly, the used bookstore owner (Inuko Inuyama) always offers her own expository comments about the author of each of books he purchases, where her brief yet revelatory insight mirrors the internalized reflections of this film. Wenders exposes how modern life is stressful and degrading, how we disconnect from culture and social relations by transforming everything into a commercial transaction, whether it’s work, love, or friendship.  Wenders honors a traditional aspect of Japan which has a strong culture of respect and duty, including a respect for cleanliness and the environment, but also for serving the common good.  The knock on the film is that it does occasionally veer into cliché’d moments of sentimentality, where the music is used to provide the emotions the film discreetly avoids, becoming a nostalgic lament for the days when people routinely took pride in their work, while offering an overly optimistic take on class equality, honoring the value of menial labor, but it also accentuates the often overlooked transient moments of our lives, creating a cinematic tone poem of ephemeral beauty.  

At the heart of this film are tiny architectural marvels, backed by the non-profit Nippon Foundation, where the Tokyo Toilet project was responsible for the creation of 17 new public bathroom facilities across Shibuya, Tokyo (a major commercial and finance center featuring two of the busiest railway stations in the world), each one designed by leading architects intent on transforming the perceptions of public rest room facilities in Japan, where according to a 2016 government survey devised by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism, a mere 1% of participants reported frequently using toilets at parks and public areas, while 90% insisted they rarely or never used them due to the belief they were unclean, unsanitary, and unsafe, which is fairly typical of most large cities, where this depiction feels more like a dream oasis than a reality, as these futuristic designs are so appreciably welcoming.  Award-winning architect Ban Shigeru came up with the idea of see-through toilets with glass walls so potential customers can see for themselves how astonishingly clean they are, with the otherwise clear walls turning opaque if they are occupied, while also introducing high-tech devices with heated seats and a built-in bidet with adjustable water temperature.   Using colorful modernist designs that perfectly blend into their urban environment, PERFECT DAYS - Clip 2 YouTube (45 seconds), the key to their success is maintaining them in a pristine state, with a dedicated cleaning staff dressed in recognizable uniforms keeping regular cleaning schedules, where the maintenance status can be posted online.  With this in mind, Wenders and co-writer Takuma Takasaki have concocted a near wordless rumination on the experiences of a middle-aged toilet cleaner in Tokyo, as the self-contained reserve of Hirayama (Kōji Yakusho, winner of the Best Actor award at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, also an executive producer on the film) is seen going through his methodical routine each day, reading bargain-bin paperbacks before bed, neatly folding his futon mattress in the corner of his cramped apartment each morning, lovingly tending to his plants, hand-picked from parks when they are small sprigs blocked from the sunlight, overshadowed by larger trees, which he transplants to his home, drinking a can of coffee out of a vending machine before heading to work where he mops and scrubs toilets, keeping them spotlessly clean, showing extreme diligence in his work ethic as guardian of the facilities, where it’s ten minutes or so before a single spoken word is uttered.  Instead the camera holds tight to Hirayama, who is in nearly every frame of the film, with viewers seeing what he sees, experiencing what he experiences, visiting public baths frequented by middle-aged and senior men while also routinely having meals in modest establishments where they cheerfully greet him as a regular customer, becoming an immersive journey into the existential soul of a single, solitary man who is part of society’s invisible class, low-wage workers who are ignored by the larger public as if they don’t exist.  But we quickly learn what’s so appealing about him in the early morning light, playing a cassette tape in his minivan stocked with supplies on the way to work, as we hear Eric Burdon and the Animals in all their glory sing the 1964 classic, The Animals - House Of The Rising Sun (Music Video) [4K HD] YouTube (4:20).  The music sets the tone for what follows, as despite his meticulous routine, there’s something uniquely different about this man of few words. 

Every day Hirayama stops to eat lunch in a wooded park setting, eating a sandwich out of a vending machine while reading his book, yet he’s transfixed by the changing light in the trees above, pulling out his old Olympia 35mm film camera to take a snapshot, like Philip Winter (Rüdiger Vogler) in Alice in the Cities (Alice in den Städten) Road Trilogy Pt. 1  (1974), while also observing an elderly homeless man (Min Tanaka) in the park doing Tai Chi movements or collecting a bundle of sticks that he carries tied to his back, something out of the ordinary, appearing out of place, yet there’s something appealing about the way he looks out for him, always acknowledging his presence, showing ultimate respect for those living on the margins.  Even off the clock, Hirayama shows an introspective reserve, yet extreme dedication to every moment of his life, expressed through prolonged silences, as the film slowly peels back the layers of the man, excavating meaning behind the rituals of his existence, finding poetry and purpose in the mundane, where this obsession with cleaning might be a metaphor for cleansing his life, as if atoning for past sins.  Like Jim Jarmusch in his road adventures, Wenders sprinkles in a few oddball characters, where the chatty, hyper-nervous Takashi (Tokio Emoto) is Hirayama’s less dedicated, more easily distracted working partner who needs to scrounge up some cash for his date with Aya (Aoi Yamada), remarking she’s a ten out of ten, a bohemian blond who is different, probably out of his league, which explains his intensifying anxiety, melting down into a moral crisis when he exerts extreme pressure trying to manipulate Hirayama into selling some of his vintage cassettes, mostly music from the 60’s and 70’s, as they’re worth a fortune, fearing this opportunity will pass him by, growing ever more desperate with each passing minute.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, the date (which we never see) doesn’t go well, but Aya grows fascinated by tape cassettes.  Arriving out of nowhere, yet planted on his doorstep is Hirayama’s teenage niece Niko (Arisa Nakano), who stays for a few days, no reason given, becoming firmly embedded in her uncle’s routine, helping him on the rounds, eating that same sandwich for lunch, photographing that same tree on her phone, Perfect Days | Exclusive Clip YouTube (1:37), borrowing the same books to read, where it’s clear how fond they are of each other, even if they never formally express it, apparently turning to him when she has troubles at home.  Both obtain gratification from having a structure, from being organized and enjoying the small moments without living in a hurry, where their bike ride together recalls the memory of Setsuko Hara as Noriko in Ozu’s Noriko Trilogy Late Spring (Banshun) (1949), Early Summer (Bakushû) (1951), and Tokyo Story (Tokyo Monogatari) (1953), especially when he reminds her “The world is made up of many worlds.  Some are connected, and some are not.”  In many ways, Hirayama (the last name of the family in TOKYO STORY), resembles a modern day Chishū Ryū from that Trilogy, each exhibiting a masterclass in minimalist screen acting, sharing the same fatherly wisdom, the conventions of comfort and routine, while taking extreme pleasure in minor details.   

The music of Lou Reed figures just as prominently, starting the day with the sunlight bathing his face, PERFECT DAYS | Official Clip | In cinemas now YouTube (1:07), while also languishing in the atmospheric warmth of The Kinks - Sunny Afternoon (1966) 4K YouTube (3:36), where each day offers something new, yet the most stylistic innovation comes from black and white dream sequences, which appear like transitional pillow shots in Ozu films, an abstract blend of images that seem to contrast shadows and light, with the “dream instillations” design credited to Donata Wenders, the wife of the director.  If you stay until the end of the final credits you’ll discover this comes from the Japanese concept of Komorebi (Komorebi 木漏れ日), which translates to “sunlight leaking through trees,” describing the pattern of light that appears when the sun’s rays filter through the overhead leaves of the trees, casting shadows that last only an instant before disappearing forever, creating a moment of fleeting beauty, like a Haiku poem.  Another Lou Reed song seems to encapsulate the entirety of the film, Pale Blue Eyes - Velvet Underground // Perfect Days Edit YouTube (5:44), where memories come back to haunt us, often filling us with regret, yet the compilation of thoughts and reflections over an entire lifetime are what comprise our unique identity, as every moment becomes magnified through the lens of Wenders and his cinematographer Franz Lustig who has worked with him since LAND OF PLENTY (2004), in this case using full-frame lenses from the 70’s.  One of the most heart-wrenching moments of the film comes from a basement noodle bar proprietess known only as Mama (Sayuri Ishikawa), who treats Hirayama with a kind affection, like a long lost friend, but when one of the customers pulls out a guitar, she is persuaded to sing for the house, a reprise of a song we heard earlier, but given a distinct Japanese quality that is truly her own, Perfect Days: House Of The Rising Sun (Japanse versie) YouTube (1:20).  While we’ll never know her backstory, we can only imagine how this song encapsulates her life.  Hirayama’s modest lifestyle appears to be a carefully constructed safeguard against painful family memories that still haunt him, like lingering shadows from the past, resembling the detached life of exhausted traveler Travis (Harry Dean Stanton) in Paris, Texas (1984), or Damiel (Bruno Ganz), the weary angel from Wings of Desire (Der Himmel über Berlin) (1987), where his avoidance of deep relationships and digital tools speaks to a desire for tranquility through a tightly regulated routine.  There’s a quirky moment afterwards when Hirayama runs into a complete stranger seen giving Mama a hug, Tomoyama (Tomokazu Miura), where their coming together is pure coincidence, with grave implications, yet their interaction is almost childlike, filled with nuanced emotions and a carefree spirit, leading to Nina Simone singing Feelin’ Good in the final sequence, Perfect Days - Ending Scene YouTube (2:50), which plays over close-up images of Hirayama driving his van, an extended scene focusing entirely on the man we’ve been watching for two hours, suddenly jettisoned into our lives, where he sticks with us long afterwards, actually mattering in ways we can’t really fathom.