evil does not exist: water flows downhill
I first watched Ryusuke Hamaguchi's Evil Does Not Exist several months ago, and it has played on my mind ever since then. I watched it again tonight, and it has helped me get my thoughts in order, here. It's impossible to talk about this movie without spoilers, because the entire movie needs to be considered, and in this case I do think there is something to be said for experiencing the first movie without preconception of what is going to happen. (I usually don't think that.) It's on the Criterion Channel right now, they have a free trial if you aren't already a member, it's got a 1 hr 45 minute runtime, you should go watch it and then come back; I'll still be here, I promise.
So, with that said: spoilers below.
Evil Does Not Exist takes place in a remote mountain village occupied by some six thousand souls. It follows a man named Takumi, who spends his days carrying water and chopping wood; we know very little about him, except that he knows this land intimately, and he loves his daughter Hana very much. Before we are introduced to the main conflict in the story, we are introduced to the woods and the village: long, moody shots of the trees, quiet moments of collecting spring water, steep-roofed cabins with aluminum siding and piles of wood and snowmobiles, the occasional sound of a distant gunshot. Takumi assures us that they are not close--some hunters in a neighboring area--but even so we soon see the effects of the hunters: the picked-clean skeleton of a fawn, which Takumi tells his daughter was "gut-shot, wounded by a bullet." A reminder of our impact on the world we live in.
A talent agency, chasing after pandemic subsidies, has decided to make this remote village the spot for their new glamping project: a 64-person hotel with a septic capacity for fifty people that, we learn in the "briefing" two unqualified talent agents pitch to the village, will, in the plan as presented, poison the water, present a wildfire risk, and otherwise disrupt the town's way of life. Our talent scouts are chastened by the villagers' well-researched and passionate pleas to be mindful of their effects on the environment; they apologize for their ignorance, and pledge to try to convince their boss to do better.
He does not. Instead he sends them back, hoping to manipulate the locals that he assumes are idiot bumpkins into just going with the project more or less as it is. And on the way back, one of the talent scouts, Takahashi, decides, on a whim, that perhaps he should be the caretaker of this new place. He's become enamored of the village, after all. He tries his hand at chopping wood, he helps carry water. Despite the fact that his presence here in the village on this return trip represents the agency's unwillingness to compromise their position on the project, he really believes that perhaps this is his chance to quit his soul-crushing job in the city and start his life anew here in the woods. And he asks Takumi to be their adviser, to teach them everything he knows about the land, so that he can be a good caretaker.
There are several stories you can imagine unfolding from here. From the title, you'd be forgiven for assuming that Takahashi will learn the ropes and gradually come to a true, deep respect for the land, not just the overconfident city slicker's infatuation with the aesthetics of a bucolic existence. Perhaps he would, in a heart-warming climax, abandon his dream of becoming a caretaker and help the villagers oppose the project, thereby throwing away his job and possibly his chance of moving to the village he has come to love.
That's not what happens.
When he is offered the position of adviser, Takumi offers Takahashi and his coworker, Mayuzumi, some advice: the proposed site is on a deer track. You'll need to surround the site with three meters of wall to keep the deer out. Would that cause a problem, he asks--a genuine question. An example of something they might need to consider.
As they consider this, they accompany Takumi on some errands, and on the way to pick up Hana from school, ultimately reject his advice. Takahashi says maybe the deer will be too timid to come to the glamping site in the first place; Mayuzumi wonders if perhaps it would be good for city dwellers to encounter wild animals, despite Takumi's warning that they carry disease. And when they ask if deer attack people, he says that they don't usually, unless they are injured and unable to flee, or their child is threatened. We see the fawn's skeleton again on the way back to Takumi's cabin.
Hana goes missing, and Takahashi insists on joining the search. I must say here that I believe we are meant to see him as a well-intentioned man; he is overconfident and foolish and acting in the service of an agency that represents several very real threats to the village, but he means well. The whole village turns out to search; Takahashi and Takumi ultimately find her, mere meters away from a gut-shot deer. Then, as Takahashi moves to run to her, Takumi tackles him to the ground, grabs him by his neck, and strangles him to unconsciousness and leaves him for dead on a cold winter night. Takumi picks up a now-unconscious Hana, and runs into the woods with her. A long shot of the forest at night accompanied by the sounds of heavy breathing, and the film fades to black, and the credits roll.
This ending is jarring, and sudden, but it's not as if the movie hasn't been reminding us that even timid, peaceful deer will sometimes fight back, when they are injured, or when their children are threatened. It's not as if we haven't been hearing the sounds of gunshots in the distance; it's not as if we haven't spent most of the movie thinking about corporate greed's willingness to literally poison the water in order to make, according to one of the agency's bosses, two months worth of sales from pandemic subsidies that will be expiring soon. The ending is jarring, but it is also, I think, inevitable.
Can you negotiate with an existential threat? Can you convince a project that will poison the water you rely on to live to respect your way of life? Can the willful ignorance of corporate greed be won over with reasoned arguments or appeals to compassion? Is there a resolution to this conflict that does not, ultimately, end in violence--either violence that will ultimately destroy this village, or violence that prevents the project from going forward altogether?
The movie leaves a lot of questions unanswered, but the point is not, really, to learn the fate of the project. The point is that even a wounded deer will fight back, if it has no other option.