We talk to the Japanese director about ‘Evil Does Not Exist,’ ‘Gift’ and balancing realness and ambiguity
Ryusuke Hamaguchi just can’t miss. The Japanese auteur has spent over a decade crafting an impressive resumé of lengthy, complex films exploring human connections and relationships. In 2021, the director hit the world stage with two films: Drive My Car—the first Japanese film to ever receive a nomination in the Oscars’ Best Picture category—and Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy—the winner of the Silver Bear (Second Prize) at that year’s Berlinale.
In many senses, after that monumental year, Hamaguchi held the world in his hands. Critics, audiences and the industry were all eager to see what the filmmaker would do next, and how he would approach filmmaking after his sudden, influential rise in fame. In a fascinating (and welcome) twist, Hamaguchi didn’t double down on what made his previous works so iconic. Instead, he turned to a completely different subject and a different method of filmmaking and storytelling entirely.
The result is Evil Does Not Exist, a slow-paced, sharply-defined eco-thriller whose complex script, endlessly fascinating set of characters and strong visual language secure it as both a must-see and an early contender for the best film of the year. Hamaguchi often relays the film’s plot—which follows villagers in rural Japan dealing with an entertainment company trying to set up a glamping site near the town, threatening the residents’ environment, way of life and daily routines—through visual sequences rather than conversations. He defines and personifies the characters (and their relationships to one another) by their habitual routines over lines of dialogue. Hamaguchi dedicates minutes-long scenes to the repetitions of simple actions, like characters’ chopping wood, yet they’re impossible to look away from.
All of these aspects solidify Evil Does Not Exist as an unforgettable experience, one that paradoxically marks a clear break, yet a sense of continuity, within Hamaguchi’s broader filmography. To discuss some of the complexities surrounding the film, and learn more about the auteur’s process of conceptualizing an idea and bringing it to life, we spoke to the director about Evil Does Not Exist and his other new film, Gift—a silent, 74-minute film only screening with a live, improvised accompaniment from the film’s composer, Eiko Ishibashi. Gift played three times at New York’s Lincoln Center last week, selling out all its showings months in advance.
Kaveh Jalinous: How and when did you first conceive of Evil Does Not Exist? Did you know you always wanted to make this film? Or is it a more recent undertaking?
Ryusuke Hamaguchi: I’m going to answer the second part of your question first (about whether this was something I always wanted to do). I think the answer is yes. Evil Does Not Exist was made somewhat accidentally, but looking back on it, I think this kind of film was something I’ve always wanted to make. The project first came about when Eiko Ishibashi [the film’s composer] asked whether I would be interested in making visuals for a live performance of her’s. I had a lot of fun working with her on Drive My Car, so I accepted the offer.
For a long time, I didn’t know what to do next, but through our exchanges, I realized she was looking for me to do an extension of my usual process. So, I started writing a script for a fictional film, Evil Does Not Exist. By shooting that, I figured there’d be a lot of footage I could use to make the visuals for Ishibashi’s live performance. This original feature film was not something we intended to release. But, once we were in production and I saw how wonderful the actors’ performances were, I wanted people to hear their voices. I got permission from Ishibashi to release this film as well, and that’s how both Evil Does Not Exist and Gift were born.
Could you provide a timeline of that process—how long it took to craft the film, shoot the film and then repurpose it?
I received Ishibashi’s offer at the end of 2021. In our early exchanges, she talked about a past album she had made, for which she researched the roots of her grandfather and arrived at the theme of lost landscapes. Around May/June 2022, through subsequent discussions on the meaning of that idea, we settled on the theme of dust. Eiko wrote a few songs with dust as their theme, but when I listened to them, I still couldn’t figure out how to turn them into images. In September 2022, I decided to shoot Ishibashi making music in her natural environment.
Going there, I saw the rich nature that surrounded her, the same nature framed in Evil Does Not Exist. Seeing her work there made me realize that incorporating these landscapes would best harmonize with her songs, since that’s where she makes them. In November 2022, I started doing more research on the land and the area. In January 2023, I began writing the film’s script. For about three weeks in February/March 2023, we shot the film. In April 2023, we edited. Finally, in May and June 2023, we did the sound and coloring.
One of the most fascinating aspects of the film, in my opinion, is the way the characters are developed through their actions and habitual routines, rather than strict dialogue. In that sense, could you speak more on your process of characterization?
Because of the nature of this particular project, I figured that I needed to disregard sound, since that would be filled in by Ishibashi’s performance. In that sense, I couldn’t rely on dialogue either. Instead, to craft the film’s characters, I researched how people live in the area, on the land. One thing I discovered, for example, is that in rural areas, people chop wood. I found this process very cinematically interesting and wanted it to be central to the film’s story. Conceptually, my preparation process wasn’t so different from what I usually do, having my actors do readings and learn the dialogue repeatedly.
For example, Hitoshi Omika [the film’s principal actor] didn’t have much experience chopping wood before all of this, so I asked him to chop wood over and over again. Through that, we could turn him into a character who seemed like he lived in the mountains. Additionally, as someone coming from an urban environment into a rural area, I also experienced the process of chopping wood. So, even my own experiences present themselves as actions within the film.
Evil Does Not Exist boasts such a unique visual flair. In tune with the film’s plot, the film’s style revolves around a quiet rural setting, the snow and ice of the winter season, and the power of natural light. How did you develop the film’s visual language? Did you and Yoshio Kitagawa (the film’s director of photography) have a sense of what natural elements you wanted to capture from the beginning, or did these things come later in development?
During the research period before I started writing the script, Yoshio Kitagawa and I walked around with a camera to figure out what we could shoot within the landscape. Ultimately, we weren’t working with a huge budget, so we needed to think about what we could shoot in a practical sense. I was also thinking about which elements within these places could sync well with Ishibashi’s music. Exploring the theme of dust, we looked for thin, small particles in the landscape—air, water splatters, fog and dust particles from chopping wood, among others. By seeing how these elements could be captured and thinking about how they could be incorporated into the film, I started to weave everything together and build it up into a story.
Perhaps even more so than your other films, Evil Does Not Exist benefits strongly from ambiguity—ambiguity of dialogue, ambiguity of actions, ambiguity of motivations. How do you hope audiences will interpret the ambiguity around the film’s name, major moments, characters, and (perhaps most strikingly) ending?
I think there’s both a good and a bad kind of ambiguity. The bad kind is ambiguity with no substance. With good ambiguity, it may be ambiguous, but you can still feel there’s something there, that there’s a strength to it. I knew the film’s ending would surprise people, so it was about figuring out how to make that ending work. I wanted to ensure that the characters, up until the ending, really felt alive. If you get the sense that these characters exist, the end can also actually feel like it exists, feel like it’s real. I think balancing both realness and ambiguity is important, to have the ambiguity stand out and work in its own way.
I want to pivot to a quick question regarding your other new film, Gift. How do you perceive the relationship between Evil Does Not Exist and Gift, especially for audiences who have not/might not be able to see that film (at least for a little while)?
Ultimately, these two films are similar. One way I like to describe them is as non-identical twins. They were born at the same time and they’re created from the same genetic pool (in this case, the same type of footage). However, they will probably go on to lead very different lives. Because they do look similar to each other, I think one is inclined to relate the two. Plus, at the same time, there is an understanding between the two pieces, as they each somewhat also influence how each other gets seen. But, with all that said, I see them as two entirely different pieces, and I want people to process them as two very different experiences.
Literature flows through your films—both directly (Anton Chekov’s Uncle Vanya plays a large role in Drive My Car) and indirectly (through your process of developing narrative and characterization). Can you speak to the role that literature has in your filmmaking process—whether that be the kinds of stories you like to read, or the ways certain literary ideals manifest themselves in your imagery-grounded works?
I do get asked sometimes about my relationship with literature, and I’m really grateful for these questions. But at the same time, I have to be honest—I haven’t read that much literature. And because of that, I don’t feel super literary. But, I can say that filmmaking requires a lot of words. Of course, when writing scripts, you have to write in words. Those words are then physicalized by the actors who have to say them, who perform according to them. Performance is a very strange realm in this sense. Additionally, through my filmmaking experiences, I have learned about the power of words themselves.
Working with Chekov’s words, for example, I realized that good writers can influence a person’s body through their words alone. Ultimately, I would love to be able to achieve that, to write words that—when said, when read or when heard—have that effect on people. That’s also the kind of directing I hope to achieve. But to reach that point, to write words like that, I probably should read more literature.
We conducted this interview with a translator edited it for clarity. Photo courtesy of Sideshow and Janus Films.