A Non-Human Perspective: An Interview with ‘Evil Does Not Exist’ Filmmaker Ryûsuke Hamaguchi

In the rural alpine hamlet of Mizubiki, not far from Tokyo, Takumi and his daughter, Hana, lead a modest life gathering water, wood, and wild wasabi for the local udon restaurant. Increasingly, the townsfolk become aware of a talent agency’s plan to build an opulent glamping site nearby, offering city residents a comfortable “escape” to the snowy wilderness. When two company representatives arrive and ask for local guidance, Takumi becomes conflicted in his involvement, as it becomes clear that the project will have a pernicious impact on the community. Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s follow up to his Academy Award®-winning DRIVE MY CAR is a foreboding fable on humanity's mysterious, mystical relationship with nature. As sinister gunshots echo from the forest, both the locals and representatives confront their life choices and the haunting consequences they have.

Ryûsuke Hamaguchi is a craftsman when it comes to how he uses the moving image to stir and evoke emotions in the subtlest fashion. The Oscar winning filmmaker behind Drive My Car returns with his latest film, Evil Does Not Exist, emotions are stirred with tranquility and balance of music, sound design, and characters against the horizontal plane of what is captured in frame. And it goes without saying, location, location, location. There’s a flourish of organic elements at play from the trees, deer and villagers to all the silence in between. And from the opening shot to the bookend shot, it ebbs and flows like a musical movement.

Ryûsuke Hamaguchi recently spoke with Script about how he initially landed on the seed of this idea with musician Eiko Ishibashi, his creative process from location influencing the story, and his collaboration with cinematographer Yoshio Kitagawa well before pre-production.

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

Sadie Dean: Knowing that your also your other writer [Eiko Ishibashi] who came up with the concept with you is also a composer, there is definitely a sense of fluidity within the pace of the film as if it were a musical movement in a very poetic and organic form. I would love to hear how the seed for this idea blossomed.

Ryûsuke Hamaguchi: I would say the seed probably is Eiko Ishibashi's music. In terms of the plot or the story, she made no suggestions as to what needs to be the story. But I knew I needed to make something that fits well with her music. And that's really because this all began with her requesting that I make visuals to be played for her life performance.

And in thinking about the work I've already done with her with Drive My Car and just thinking about music in general, I thought that what I would make is not something where the emotions of the characters develop out of conversations in the way that it has been for my past films, but rather perhaps this project would be something that would be cooler in temperature, but also just what might even include somewhat of a non-human perspective. And perhaps that's related somewhat to the fact that she also makes electronic music, but I felt that I needed some kind of non-human perspective and also that her music is not something that has a clear interpretation nor a very clear resolution. And in thinking about all of these resulted in the particular story that I wrote.

Sadie: There’s a line in a scene where Takumi states, “the balance is key” – how did you approach that in terms of the overwhelming emotional dilemma for both parties, between the locals versus the employees of the glamping and talent agency?

Ryûsuke: I wonder how I came up with that dialogue, specifically. But one thing that I did even before I started writing the script, I did a lot of research in the area and the people who live there. And before I knew much about how things were going, I realized that there's already a balance that exists in the way people live there. And the people necessarily haven't already made a decision about how they want things to go.

In fact, the glamping town hall is based on a real incident that actually happened in real life. And what I realized by listening to people who were there to hear about how that went, I realized that the residents were not completely against the whole idea. They were there to actually hear it out and if this plan is something that is actually helpful for the region and for the people then they would have considered cooperating with them. But once they heard the plan and started asking questions about the plan, the more explaining that the company did, the more the plan started to collapse onto itself. And so, in hearing how that went and also listening to the locals and their attitudes and words that they spoke, I think that led me to these words about balance and thinking about this place.

Sadie: I feel like this location is very much a central character to this whole film, especially how you introduce it with that beautiful opening of the trees and the bookend with the trees. What was that process like for you as a director in choosing that specific location and how you were going to incorporate what you see in the frame?

Ryûsuke: So, I was looking for what works with Eiko Ishibashi's music, but the fact that she trusted me so much with what I was able to do, there was so much freedom and no limitations of what I could and could not do. In fact, I sort of needed some limitations on what I should do. And so, what I ended up doing was going out to visit her while she's making music. And we ended up shooting her making that music and I realized that the environment in which she made the music must influence the work that she does. And when I saw that environment, that's when I decided that I wanted to shoot there and give myself that fruitful limitation to say this is where I'm going to find my materials.

Then I needed to think about what works with her music. And so then, I was looking for subtlety and movements and movements that are subtly continuous, and whether I could find those elements within nature.

And in looking for places, I also came across an area where I could do the shot of the trees that we see in the opening of the film. I remember that in the past, I had this perspective myself where I was looking up at the trees. And as I was looking up at the trees, the branches created these layers. And as I was moving, the relationships between the branches kept changing and developing. And I felt that this sensation is very similar to Eiko Ishibashi's music, and something about that made me feel that this could be very much a core to the film. And in going back to thinking about things that are constantly moving, I also started collecting and looking for places where there was steam or where there was fog and started to gather elements that I could shoot in this way.

Sadie: I would love to talk about the interweaving and again, finding that balance between your framing and your editing of this film from how you pan across the horizon to utilizing hard cuts. What were those creative conversations like with both your cinematographer and your additional editor?

Ryûsuke: I don't really express things at a very ideological level, so much, rather the conversation is quite practical and what is actually physically there. And that's what I talked about with both Yoshio Kitagawa, who's the DP as well as the editor Azusa Yamazaki. But what might be slightly different about this particular project from other projects is that I had Yoshio Kitagawa come with me for the research process and the research process that happened even before the script writing. Because generally speaking, I think DPs and camera people come in around pre-production right before we start shooting. However, with this, I had my cinematographer and the camera come along to figure out what in fact what kind of shots were possible in this region, what we would shoot, what we could frame, and where we could, for example, find the steam, things like that. And so, we really, one by one checked what was possible with the camera.

And in regards to the edit, so I specifically edited more of Evil Does Not Exist. However, Azusa Yamazaki took on the editing of Gift primarily. Again, rather than talking about this specific thing, or that specific thing, what we did together was to watch the rushes together, all the footage together. And because we knew that we were creating visuals for a live performance, what we did was cut out all the sound that we had, and just watched purely the images together and see what was physically there in the frame. In terms of balance, I think it has a lot to do with figuring out what the edit points are also where the camera position is…

One thing that I just wanted to add regarding my cinematographer is that there is one particular shot that is quite important of the father carrying the daughter on his back. And it's quite a long take. That was something that my DP Yoshio Kitagawa suggested. And I was able to incorporate that into the story, that was a really big addition that he made to the story, so I wanted to add that.

Sadie: I believe there's a lot of subtext within the title of this film - very layered like the trees that we see in the first shot and the closing shot. What do you hope audiences take away from watching your film?

Ryûsuke: In terms of audience and what I want them to sort of take away, I think ultimately, there's no way for me to control what kind of life that audience member has led up until that point. So, there's a lot that I can't do anything about in that sense. So, whatever they saw and thought from the film is what I ultimately want people to take home and take back with them.

But what I can say is that regarding the title Evil Does Not Exist, I do think that there is a nervous relationship that is built through the title and what actually is the film. And we don't even hear the words 'evil does not exist' as dialogue in the story. And there's probably no real specific instance that would really make you think that about what's going on. But I did particularly use this title. So perhaps it would be interesting and perhaps a more interesting experience if people thought about how the title and the film might relate to each other and work together.

Evil Does Not Exist is now playing in select Theatres.