Evil Does Not Exist 悪は存在しない

Well don’t be so sure of that suggests Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s movie. A father Takumi (Hitoshi Omika) and daughter Hana (Ryo Nishikawa) and a forest village community live a life connected to nature and wildlife; utilising the spring water to make delicious noodles. Everything is in a delicate balance — only not for long as some city slickers arrive from corporate Playmode with a plan to plonk a glamping camp on a deer trail, with a septic tank polluting the existing people’s water supply. What will the community of Harasawa do?

There are some charming moments — as Mayuzumi (Ayaka Shibutani) and Takahashi (Ryuji Kosaka) banter about marriage and what they want from relationships. Having been frankly horrified by the community’s reasoned and appalled reaction to their plans and then encouragingly bullied by their boss into continuing with the same flawed plan, they seek to learn from Takumi and the villagers — Takahashi even wants to join with them as a caretaker.

But all is not well — Takumi is a distracted and forgetful, even neglectful father. Hana is young, but walks herself home from school as her father forgets to collect her — or turns up late. Her mother is never mentioned. Father and daughter connect over nature, but her father broods silently over cigarettes and chores — and in drawing the two Playmode employees. Mayuzumi cuts her hand on the tree Takumi earlier warned his daughter not to touch. Hana doesn’t come home and a search party is launched for her. Worryingly, they head to the water sources of the community to look for her. But as a child of the forest — she could be anywhere.

Billed as an eco-fable, the gentle people-focused tone of the movie suddenly switches gears — and I didn’t not see the Gothic ending coming. We’re left with deep uncertainty — I thought a romance would develop, instead Takahashi yomps after Takumi to help him search for his daughter, leaving her alone. Hana’s story arc was totally unexpected as was Takumi’s behaviour. As a result we start to ask wider questions, prompted by a family photograph, of what happened to Hana’s mother, Takumi’s wife and why Takumi is adamantly tee-total. It feels very like watching Peter Weir’s Picnic At Hanging Rock — leaving us with beautiful cinematography by Yoshio Kitagawa, a fully integrated world, a delicate score by Eiko Ishibashi which utilises image and silence powerfully, and a lot of mystery.