My films are about my own cinephilia, about seeing myself as a film fan. I always set out to create things I would like to see myself—I am trying to recreate the timing I see in films that I personally like, and that have moved me.
—Ryusuke HamaguchiPoetic Injustice: Ryusuke Hamaguchi on his new eco-parable Evil Does Not Exist
With Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist out in US cinemas, the filmmaker tells Rafa Sales Ross about his poetic observation of the rhythms of nature, the importance of engaging with other art forms and why it is so very tricky to work with deer.
Two years ago, Ryusuke Hamaguchi made history when Drive My Car became the first-ever Japanese film to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. The drama about an aging widower and his chauffeur, which went on to win the Oscar for Best International Film, was the second Hamaguchi effort within the season, with Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy playing at prestigious festivals to great acclaim.
Such a tremendous year meant all eyes were on what Hamaguchi would do next, and the answer came in the form of yet another double bill, this time consisting of a bifurcated exploration of the same source material. Originally meant as a dialogue-free short film to accompany the music of composer Eiko Ishibashi, Evil Does Not Exist evolved into a feature during production. Hamaguchi then adapted the existing footage into a silent short, titled Gift, to be presented alongside a live orchestra.
Evil Does Not Exist chronicles how the arrival of a group of developers looking to build a large luxury campground disrupts the carefully balanced rhythms of a small village nested a few miles away from bustling Tokyo. There, in idyllic quietude, live handyman Takumi (Hitoshi Omika) and his young daughter, Hana (Ryô Nishikawa), whose lives would be irrevocably changed if the glamping site comes to fruition.
Hamaguchi chronicles life in this quaint village with his signature poetic framing, dwelling on the lulling tides of nature that envelop all living creatures in this modern Eden. Leaves rustle against the whistling wind, a water stream zigzags through the lush forest, a deer moves its head toward a ray of sunlight. Just as beautiful are the carefully choreographed rhythms of all that is man-made, be it a cook infusing chopped vegetables with fresh water or calloused hands bringing down a rusty axe through wood with the type of precision only experience and exhaustive repetition can grant.
Evil Does Not Exist is reluctant, unwilling even, to crucify those perceived as the villains, allowing the space for ambiguity to exist alongside the factual realities of the thorny situation at its core. “Even with all the good intentions that the employees bring and their willingness to try and change the project for the better, it won’t change a future where the life of this community is drastically worse,” puts Luke, with Michael Mann Facts adding, “the film itself plays like a reaction to its title. In an ideal world, evil does not exist; but, Hamaguchi never traffics in ideals.”
Hamaguchi is just as thoughtful an interviewee as he is a filmmaker. Even when the chatter behind us grows louder and louder mid-conversation, the director still takes a minute to pause and find stillness before elucidating his thoughts on criticism, the Japanese film industry and how tricky it can be to capture deers on film.
Can you tell me a little about how Eiko Ishibashi’s music informed the themes you would approach with Evil Does Not Exist?
Ryusuke Hamaguchi: The entire creative process began when I was asked to create the visuals for Eiko’s live performance. I had worked with her before for Drive My Car, and the thing about her music is that it does not lead people emotionally. Rather, it makes you wonder how you are supposed to feel about the music. It is a question—it does not provide a conclusion or an answer. There is something unstable about her music.
Instead of finding an end goal or wanting to evoke a certain feeling, there is something moving, something unstable that lurks within her music, so I wanted to find the visuals that could accompany that sentiment. This is how I arrived upon nature as a motif. I saw how trees move, observed how the light wavers as the sun goes down, the sounds of the wind… All of those little details that exist within nature. I thought, then, that this framing would work very well with Eiko’s type of music.
Your work finds many of its roots in theatre, and for Evil Does Not Exist you have worked closely with Eiko Ishibashi to create two distinct but complementary pieces of work that interweave your creative practices. How important is engaging with other art forms to you as a filmmaker?
I don’t necessarily believe engaging with other practices is important to my work. Each time I begin working on a new film, I am never certain of what exactly I need to make or how to make it. I am far from the kind of person who can constantly produce new work and have new ideas on what to create next… I am always alert, always looking for something and attentive to clues on how, and what, I can create. This is how I end up working with other art forms, be it theatre or music, because these are creative practices that leave strong impressions on me. I need to rely on such expressions [and] such sources of inspiration to make films and figure out what to say next and how to say it.
Over the last few years, there has been criticism of the systemic issues within the Japanese film industry and the threat it poses to traditional Japanese cinema. Do you feel your film can be seen as a parallel to this conversation in the way that it acts as a metaphor for the consequences of a foreign, powerful body interfering with the rhythms of a small community?
I am not conscious of doing this, but I also do not think it is completely impossible to connect these two ideas. The film explores the notion of going for short-term profit, which is an idea that really connects with the current Japanese film industry. In our industry, you are not easily able to develop original stories because what has a lot of force at the moment are manga and anime adaptations that are purchased and then turned into live action. This generates bad results because, ultimately, the joy and the great appeal of manga and anime are not easy to translate into live action. The live-action adaptations cause passionate manga fans to be disappointed.
By repeatedly trying to convert the success and the appeal of manga and anime into live-action films, the industry wears down their audience’s trust; there is a rupture in this relationship. This insistence on working from material that is already known to millions results in a downward spiral in the industry, but not only in the film industry. The same can be seen in other areas of the Japanese economy, which is why the economy is going down so badly. There is a desperation in this pattern.
It’s interesting you’re mentioning anime and its specificities, because the popular anime films that first come to my head are so much about movement, whereas your cinema often explores stillness. What is your relationship to cinema as a rhythm?When I think about pacing in my films, it is not as a direct critique towards something, a way to push back or an attempt at trying to do something different to what exists out there. My films are about my own cinephilia, about seeing myself as a film fan. I always set out to create things I would like to see myself—I am trying to recreate the timing I see in films that I personally like, and that have moved me.
Perhaps I am choosing a slower pace but, at the same time, whilst it might seem I take things slowly within the pacing of cinema, I think it is also about a certain type of speed, because oftentimes in my cinema, something suddenly appears—an element becomes apparent when it was not before. I think I am expressing a kind of timing in that sense, too, and that’s because, in my films, I am constantly looking at multiple causes and effects, converging timelines, a range of things that coexist with each other, that exist even when concealed. Simply put, I never set out to work against anything, but rather to try to make the types of films I would like to see as a cinephile.
Speaking about your cinephilia, it is lovely to read your perspective on film criticism. Are you a filmmaker who is curious about others’ interpretations of your work? Is it something you seek after sending a film into the world?
I do not think film criticism has anything to do with how we interpret a story and how it reads to us. If we are talking about someone’s interpretation, then, it is only an impression of a film without much engagement. To me, film criticism works in parallel with filmmaking and is an art form in itself. Criticism can be as much an art as filmmaking in that sense, and it is how I consume it.
So if you are asking if I am interested in other people’s interpretations, that is not really criticism to me. What’s important is to listen and watch carefully, to pay attention to exactly what is going on in the image and happening with the sound. If this isn’t what is being observed and discussed when one speaks of film criticism, then they are looking at something completely unrelated to the filmmaking process.
Referring to the title of Evil Does Not Exist, I’m also interested in the idea of a deer standing for the duality of man: one is not entirely good nor evil, and your actions are often defined by the actions of others. When did the figure of the deer first come to you?
I don’t quite remember at what point in making the film the deer began to come into play, but they were certainly present at a script stage, so I knew from the very beginning that I would need to shoot a deer. It’s interesting to speak about the deer from a practical perspective.
As you can see being discussed in the film itself, deers are creatures that tend to get easily scared, and it’s very, very difficult to capture deers in film. We were incredibly lucky to be able to visually capture the deer you see in the film because of that very nature. There is a mysterious element to the existence of the deer because they can hide suddenly or go away suddenly. It was not on my mind on a conscious level to have the deer as a metaphor, but I believe the film began to naturally seek this relationship, these parallels between the deer and what is unravelling in the story. It evolved naturally.
‘Evil Does Not Exist’ is now playing in US cinemas courtesy of Janus Films and Sideshow Films.
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