The Japanese director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, author of a cinema that should be enjoyed without haste, such as the Oscar-winning Drive My Car or The Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, returns to get behind the camera with Evil Doesn't Exist, a rural drama restful and dreamlike that gradually becomes a thriller with a most unexpected ending. The film, winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the last Venice Film Festival, hits theaters this Wednesday and tells how the inhabitants of a town near Tokyo confront a company that intends to set up a glamping business (a luxury campsite). on site, with all the environmental inconveniences that the project entails, since it will have a negative impact on the local water supply.
Eiko Ishibashi, composer of Drive My Car, asked him to create some visuals for her live show. How did she end up conceiving that project in a film like 'Evil Does Not Exist'?
Yes, originally she asked me to film some footage of her to accompany a concert she was doing. It's something she had never done before and I told her so, but Eiko told me that she should do it as if she were shooting a movie. So from there I wrote a script with some images that I thought could be adapted, what happened was that some actors had to intervene in the script, they had to speak. With music, in principle the dialogues would not be heard but we tried to find a type of interpretation where it could be understood only with the movement of the actors. Somehow, all of this ended up leading to a film and I told Eiko that since we had the actors and they had bothered to say their lines, it would be a shame if all of that was lost and she replied that nothing was happening. That we would use the images for her project and on the other hand I would have a film. The two projects were carried out in parallel.
His cinema has been very well received in Europe. In fact, his latest films have been awarded in Berlin, Cannes and Venice. Does he feel heir to great Japanese filmmakers who triumphed in the old continent such as Ozu, Kurosawa and Mizoguchi?
Honestly, I do not consider myself the heir of great masters like them. They lived in very different social and cinematographic conditions. I think they managed to transmit to the world the spirit of Japanese cinema of that time, but the social and cinematographic world in which I operate is very different. Of course I am very grateful for the reception my films have in Europe, but I don't think they are comparable cases.
What is your personal opinion of glamping and what tools do you think citizens have to stop such capitalist initiatives as these that can endanger the environment and the health of residents?
This glamping thing is something that is becoming more and more fashionable in Japan and has to do with the coronavirus pandemic. Somehow people are looking for new ways to separate themselves and not mix too much with others and within this this new industry has been born. When I was looking for locations for the film I came across one of these explanatory sessions with the neighbors and I thought it would be a good topic to link to the film. I believe that ordinary people can do something to stop this, as long as there is an awareness of the danger, a common awareness of these capitalist excesses.
At a time when audiovisual consumption is occurring at an increasingly dizzying pace, in the first 15 minutes of his film there is no dialogue and the camera moves between images of trees. Do you claim to go against the current?
I have to say that I never film my films with the intention of doing things against the current trends. What happens is that I like old movies and old movies had that type of rhythm that adapts very well to the needs of human beings when facing an artistic work. It is true that in those 15 minutes there is an intention for the viewer to change his mind, so to speak, for him to understand that he is going to see something different and has to pay more attention.
Why did you decide to title it 'Evil Does Not Exist'?
Being an Eiko Ishibashi project, the first thing that had to be done for this film was to find the locations. We went to many places surrounded by nature, streams, forests... and the first thing that came to mind was that evil does not exist. Probably, although the girl who appears at the beginning with the backpack walking through the forest does not say it in words, that is also the feeling she has. Throughout the film we see this conflict between nature and the city. We see where evil can come from and I think choosing this title is something that makes the viewer think.
The film addresses many universal themes such as love, nature and parenthood. As a director, what are the challenges in weaving all these themes from such a local story?
Writing a script is not an easy task. At first you don't have ideas and you don't really know how to advance the story. In my case what I do is talk to a lot of people. Throughout my film experience I have encountered projects that imposed too many conditions on me and I saw that, if necessary, a similar situation could affect me personally. The theme of glamping was ideal to tell the relationship between human beings and nature, but it is something that in many other areas can affect us in a similar way and so you add things to that script.
How was the experience of filming in nature?
Filming there has made me see things differently. I have realized that we need to reflect more on the issue of the abuses of capitalism. I realized it when I was filming, but especially once the film was finished, when I saw the type of questions people asked me. In this sense, I think my idea of seeing the world has changed a little.
