Venice film festival: Compositional quirks and unhurried direction turn this tale of a Tokyo company buying up land near a pristine lake into a complex and mysterious drama
Ryu Hamaguchi’s quietist, enigmatic eco-parable Evil Does Not Exist refuses easy explanations and perhaps it refuses difficult explanations as well. It’s a complex drama, a realist film teetering on the edge of the uncanny, whose very title points the way towards the idea that there are shades of grey in every judgment we make. It is arguably opaque and contrived, and will possibly exasperate as many as it intrigues, but I found it rippling around in my mind long after the final, extended shot with its two figures receding into the mist.
At first glance, this seems a cut-and-dried case of a story about corporate capitalism despoiling the environment: Takumi lives with his young daughter Hana in a beautifully unspoiled...
Ryu Hamaguchi’s quietist, enigmatic eco-parable Evil Does Not Exist refuses easy explanations and perhaps it refuses difficult explanations as well. It’s a complex drama, a realist film teetering on the edge of the uncanny, whose very title points the way towards the idea that there are shades of grey in every judgment we make. It is arguably opaque and contrived, and will possibly exasperate as many as it intrigues, but I found it rippling around in my mind long after the final, extended shot with its two figures receding into the mist.
At first glance, this seems a cut-and-dried case of a story about corporate capitalism despoiling the environment: Takumi lives with his young daughter Hana in a beautifully unspoiled...
- 9/4/2023
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
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