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.     

2017 Top Ten List #1 Happy Hour (Happî Awâ)

HAPPY HOUR (Happî Awâ)                A                

Japan  (317 mi)  2015  d:  Ryûsuke Hamaguchi                     Official site

Brilliantly co-written by director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, but also Tadashi Nohara and Tomoyuki Takahashi, this more-than-five-hours, expansive work may be among the best films ever written about women, where it has a novelistic reach of Edward Yang, but also reaches into the revelatory, searingly confessional outpourings of Jean Eustache’s The Mother and the Whore (La Maman et la Putain) (1973), where characters continually examine the depths of their souls, discovering they are surprisingly unhappy with the limits of their expression, where they are given no voice in modern society and are instead routinely ignored even by those closest to them.  More than anything, the film examines the failures of conventional marriages, which in Japanese society also includes traditionally arranged marriages from the prewar generation, where women are expected to stay in their place, largely confined to the duties of home, while their husbands, who control all the money, have the freedom to earn a living and do pretty much whatever they please.  Women are not expected to raise their voice and complain, but to accept their place in society, as this is simply handed down from ancient traditions, largely reinforced by religious practices.  This film is surprisingly resonant in the modern world, as it reveals how well intentioned men, without ever meaning to do so, actually choke the life out of their marriages due to neglect and psychological abuse, where prolonged disinterest only makes matters worse for their wives, as they haven’t a clue how to act any other way, as there are no societal examples to draw upon, as the entire nation is promulgated on laws written totally and exclusively by men, where there is no precedent to include the views of women.  While Kenji Mizoguchi is arguably the most fiercely critical Japanese filmmaker, actively exposing the plight of women throughout his legendary film career, where the oppression and subjugation of women are at the center of nearly all his films, gender equality was never incorporated into Japanese law until the postwar Constitution of 1947, which abolished the previously existing patriarchal authority and re-established marriage (including divorce) on the grounds of equality and choice, where women consequently received the right to vote. Nonetheless, old habits are hard to break, and divorce remains a social stigma in Japan, associated with a loss of face and honor, where elite private schools are said to reject children from single-parent homes, while many companies are reluctant to hire divorced women or promote employees who have divorced.  Among the more remarkable statistics, only about 15 percent of divorced fathers in Japan pay child support.  From columnist Todd Jay Leonard, Divorce in Japan varies greatly from that in the United States:   

No upstanding family wants their child to marry someone from a divorced family, as if it were something contagious. So, they live in misery, putting on a happy façade until the children marry, then they divorce. […]

Also, traditionally, with the father working outside the home — often married to his career and spending most days, evenings and weekends with work colleagues — the wife feels her personal space is invaded when he retires and sometimes decides not to spend the rest of her life serving him. So, she seeks a divorce from him. […]

In my opinion, women in Japan certainly get the short end of the stick in divorces.  There are a number of derogatory terms used toward women, such as “demodori” which refers to a woman who goes back to her parents’ home after the divorce. Another term, “kizumono,” means “damaged goods” like those that are on a discount table because they likely cannot be sold again — “seconds,” in other words.  A more modern term used for both men and women is “batsu ichi” meaning “one failure,” like the English term “one strike.” 

These terms are quite harsh, so it is understandable why people here are hesitant to divorce — even those who desperately need to — because of the stigma associated with them afterwards by society.  

Divorce remains a sticky issue in Japan, for families as well as couples, as unless both parties consent, divorce proceedings are long, protracted, and difficult, while women have a hard time getting alimony and child-support payments.  A woman’s financial dependence on her husband is the most persuasive argument for continuing an unhappy marriage.  More and more, however, Japan sees in-house divorces, called “katei-nai-rikon,” loveless marriages that often end in stalemate rather than separation, where married couples continue to live under the same roof, but separately, leading their own individual lives, having little to no contact with the other.  While Hamaguchi’s film is not specifically about divorce per se, but it has an explosive impact on the lives of four women, all in their mid to late 30’s who happen to be best friends, Akari (Sachie Tanaka), the lone divorcée of the group, yet the most bluntly honest while arguably the most outgoing, who works as a professional nurse, under considerable pressure because of the grim realities of Japan’s large aging population, Sakurako (Hazuki Kikuchi), a shy, in-home housewife raising her teenage son Daiki, with her mother-in-law in the home, subject to the whims of her stoic, overworked husband Yoshihiko (Yoshio Shin), Fumi (Maiko Mihara), perhaps the most reserved of all, the curator of an art center named PORTO, living with her husband Takuya (Hiroyuki Miura), a distant and emotionally unreachable literary editor, and Jun (Rira Kawamura), a kitchen assistant who inadvertently sets the gears in motion by revealing she is seeking a divorce from her husband Kohei (Yoshitaka Zahana), an impassive yet overly rational biologist who specializes in fertilized egg development, the kind of guy who can’t begin to understand the complexities of his wife, yet insists upon having his way.  While these are the main characters who seem to appear before the audience like revolving doors, each sequence providing more insight into their gradually unfolding lives, the origins of the narrative actually began in twenty-three theater workshops, much like the methods of Mike Leigh, where the cast is made up entirely of nonprofessional participants, using improvisatory sessions to flesh out the characters and their motivations, starting under the working title Brides.  Driven by seemingly organic exchanges between characters, an extraordinary authenticity is established by reaching profoundly personal depths of discussion, often using question and answer techniques, where this is the truly unique characteristic of the film, even more than the unusual length.  Premiering at the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland, Hamaguchi won a prize for Best Screenplay, while all four actresses shared a prize for Best Actress. 

The setting is the port city of Kobe, as the introductory shot reveals the four women riding inside a tram heading up the side of a mountain, as their destination is a gazebo picnic site overlooking the city.  While normally this is a beautiful panoramic vista, on this particular day it is dismally cloudy, engulfed in a fog bank, where they can’t see but just a few feet in front of them.  “This resembles our future,” Jen suggests, but overall the spirited group has too much fun together to take the comment seriously, already planning their next outing.  Fumi invites her friends to an upcoming New-Age meditative workshop at her art center, which turns into an exercise class in search of their inner balance.  Led by Ukai (Shuhei Shibata), a conceptual artist who made a name for himself balancing large pieces of debris left on the beach from the Tōhoku earthquake of 2011, he guides a class of about ten participants through a series of group exercises designed to increase trust and understanding of their own bodies in connection to the group at large, often partnering up to enhance the experience, devoting an extensive amount of time establishing a collective rhythm, reminiscent of the intricate detail established in Rivette’s legendary Out 1 and Jacques Rivette R.I.P.  (1971), itself a mammoth 12-hour film, as both reflect the organic improvisatory rehearsal process as a lead-in to discovering the true voices of the characters in the film.  Shot by cinematographer Yoshio Kitagawa, the intimacy of these scenes involves the audience as well, setting the tone from the outset, identifying the characters, sharpening their senses, eliminating all skepticism and negativity, establishing the concept of a group dynamic as the central focus of the film, acting as a gateway to a new and unique discovery, preparing for a different kind of honesty, opening the floodgates for what’s to come, both literally and symbolically.  Ukai is an unusual facilitator, as outside the classroom setting he’s a completely different guy, much more direct and confrontational, asking blunt, even awkwardly personal questions, a trait that is more in keeping with his personality, according to those who have known him since childhood, which comes into play in a group meal after the classes are over.  Asked about their personal lives, it’s here that Jun reveals to the group that she’s involved in a particularly grueling divorce procedure, acknowledging having an affair outside the marriage, which comes as a surprise to her friends, except for Sakurako, who has known her since childhood, so they have a closer relationship.  Akira in particular, who reveals her own growing fears about legal liabilities in the nursing profession, is incensed to have been left out until now, believing they shared everything with each other, but Jun flatly states no one ever asked her before.  This emotional bombshell has a way of reverberating throughout their group for the remainder of the picture, as they each have their own way of displaying understanding and support, which, at least initially, isn’t fully understood.             

Hamaguchi, like Edward Yang, is interested in human relationships and how narratives unfold in naturalistic settings, told without a trace of sentiment or melodrama, with much of it having the feel of documentary realism, edited in such a way as to allow a kind of clinical detachment, as it never allows too much time with a single character, but clearly is interested in delving into psychological realism through each evolving character, as they are vividly better understood by the audience over time, as what we know about them undergoes a transformation, where by the end each one is in a substantially different place from the outset, largely developed through shared experiences, intensive dialogue, and our ability to gain psychological insights out of ordinary moments.  What seems to set them in motion is a court scene, as they support Jun in her “ugly” divorce proceedings, but she is clearly on the losing side of the court battle, caught up in a deeply sexist, male-dominated Japanese society, where Jun’s real intent is to be free of her husband, not based on salacious details, as he’s never been violent or overly hostile, but simply based on the oppressive nature of the relationship, where she believes he’s all but killed her inner spirit through a boring period of continual neglect and disinterest, where she needs to be free of him to liberate what’s left of her spirit.  The court however, is looking for a different kind of evidence than simply breaking her spirit, so it’s set up for the male partner to prevail, and he’s not interested in divorce, but instead insists upon holding onto her, like his possession, as otherwise he will be viewed with disgrace.  So he’s worried about his personal reputation, not the feelings of his wife.  Try as he may, the more he insists, the farther she wants to be away from him.  While the husband Kohei, the court system, and Japanese society at large haven’t a clue why Jun would be demanding a divorce, as Kohei is an accredited working professional, viewed by society as a success, it’s clear by her personal testimony that she’s the harmed party suffering years of emotional abuse, and it’s well past the point of reconciliation, yet that’s what the court recommends.  Each of her three friends witnesses the casual yet derisive manner that Jun’s feelings are completely disregarded, where because of her admitted affair the law remains on her husband’s side, but he’s too insistent on getting his way to even care what Jun’s going through.  This forces them all to reexamine more closely their own marriages and relationships, where things are not as they seem, as an underlying tension is hidden in politeness and social grace.  Hamaguchi scrutinizes each one more closely, yet with deceptive simplicity, where clearly he demonstrates sympathy for the other men involved, yet when faced with a moment of truth, tested by a fierce wave of feminine independence, they behave in an expected manner, unable or unwilling to see beyond their own interests.  This becomes the modern era battleground, all taking place behind closed doors, but women are simply speaking up for themselves, taking control of their own lives, yet it’s clear men prefer their traditional muted expressions.  Much of this plays out with an extraordinary degree of tenderness, accentuated by astonishing music by Umitarô Abe, which shifts from classical symphonic to traditional Japanese to a gorgeously melancholic piano score, all lending credibility to the achievement of sublime moments.            

Sometime later, the four friends take an overnight trip to the Arima hot springs, given another layer of interest when Takuya decides to drive them there, as he intends to meet with a budding young novelist who’s only 25, a female writer he’s editing, Yuzuki Nose (Ayaka Shibutani), which gives the others a chance to needle Fumi about her marriage, suggesting Takuya looks more relaxed in the cute young writer’s company.  In fact, they all feel a new attitude about the solidarity of their friendships, discovering something changing and anew, where each one faces the camera and re-introduces themselves, with Sakurako, who’s known Jun since childhood, confessing, “ I’ve known you a long time.  But it’s like I’m meeting you for the first time.”  These personal shifts are a key to understanding the film, as the film probes under the surface in revealing how the thoughtless and self-absorbed behavior of men places such internalized pressures on women, where it has an extraordinary influence on their existing relationships as well, as women are forced to seek emotional fulfillment outside the bonds of marriage. Interestingly, as if to prove this point, the other three women return home but Jun stays behind, presumably to see more sights, meeting another woman on a bus, who unexpectedly reveals her entire family history before getting off, where this flurry of interior exploration comes to represent what this film is all about, showing how easily our lives are affected by external events.  With that, reminiscent of Antonioni’s L’AVVENTURA (1960), Jun suddenly disappears, never to be seen again, heading off into a network of protected support groups where confidentiality protections prevent her husband from locating her, though it’s not for lack of trying, literally stalking her, as he hires a private detective in the process.  But she’s also missing from her friends, who probably suffer more severely than her husband, as they rely upon her friendship in an everyday manner, as she’s important to them.  As if to mirror the earlier extended exercise session at PORTO, Fumi’s art center, Yuzuki Nose gives a reading of her latest work, introduced by Takuya, where she reads an extended passage about her experience at the hot springs, which becomes a sensuous expression of nude body shapes and repressed emotional longing, suggesting the unspoken object of her affection is probably Takuya, which certainly makes Fumi, as well as the audience, exceedingly uncomfortable. This leads to a series of random events where Ukai resurfaces and reveals himself to be something of a snake, though he was expected to lead a Q & A with the author, but his strange disappearance creates a last-minute substitution, none other than Kohei, who goes on a diversionary speech about his research into molecular cell division that is excruciatingly off-topic, yet somehow he pulls it together to make a few cogent observations about her story, which, by all accounts, is little more than a shallow, coming-of-age story that seems fueled by feelings she’s afraid to express.  In an ill-advised dinner afterwards, Fumi and Sakurako are placed in the awkward position of having to confront Kohei about the negative impact he’s having on their lives, as his refusal to accept a divorce is preventing Jun’s return, where her absence is a glaring omission, as she was the one that brought them all together.  Predictably, Kohei is unmoved, thinking only of himself, where the dinner ends in disaster, reaching extraordinary levels of tension.  A chaotic series of events occurs changing the trajectories of each relationship, mysteriously moving from optimism to tragedy and back to optimism again, where the story becomes increasingly fragmented into dark twists and detours that contrast against the previously existing harmony, but has a transformative effect overall, ultimately revealing how dramatically lives are changed, becoming an immersive, intensely moving, cinematic experience.