As this year’s Venice Film Festival approaches its end, my thoughts are unexpectedly drawn not to a particular film but to the haunting music of Eiko Ishibashi—a melody that resonates more profoundly than any cinematic memory. This connection isn’t as strange as it might seem; after all, it was Ishibashi’s music that served as the creative spark for last year’s Grand Prix-winning film, Evil Does Not Exist, directed by the Oscar-winning Ryusuke Hamaguchi.
Ishibashi, who previously composed the score for Hamaguchi’s critically acclaimed Drive My Car (which won the Oscar for Best International Film in 2022), first created a piece of music that she shared with Hamaguchi, inviting him to interpret it through his cinematic vision. Hamaguchi, deeply inspired, retreated to a serene mountain village in Japan, and after a year, emerged with the script for Evil Does Not Exist.
The film’s title is provocative—a bold statement that might incite either laughter at its apparent absurdity or unease as it challenges our perceptions of reality. Evil Does Not Exist opens with a mesmerizing four-minute shot: a tilted camera slowly tracking upward as if the viewer is looking at the sky through the branches of oak, larch, and pine. This serene shot, accompanied by Ishibashi’s evocative yet tension-filled music, sets the tone for the entire film.
At first glance, the film appears to tell a familiar story of corporate capitalism encroaching on an unspoiled environment. Takumi, (played by Hitoshi Omika) lives with his eight-year-old daughter, Hana in the pristine village of Mizubuki. This idyllic setting, just outside Tokyo, is where the widowed Takumi makes a modest living by chopping wood and collecting pure spring water for a local noodle restaurant—a task that underscores nature’s superiority over the artificiality of tap water.
But this paradise is fragile. The frugal, seemingly innocent life is disrupted by the sound of gunshots from nearby hunters, a constant reminder of the ever-present threat to the peaceful coexistence of man and nature.
The father-daughter bond is poetically depicted through a long lateral tracking shot. The shot begins with Takumi walking alone by the woods, and as the camera follows him parallelly, a low cliff briefly obscures the view. When the camera clears the cliff, we see Takumi walking with Hana on his shoulder. Like a caring father, he helps Hana identify the trees by their names. Yet, despite this tender relationship, Takumi occasionally forgets to pick Hana up from school, hinting at the cracks in his seemingly perfect life.
The story takes a turn when corporate representatives Takahashi and Mayuzumi arrive in the village to propose a “glamping” project—glamorous camping with amenities like attached toilets, hot tubs, and Wi-Fi. The village community, however, unanimously rejects the proposal, arguing that it would destroy their natural ecosystem. In response to the claim that the site would become “a new tourist hot spot,” the village’s elderly chief, Suruga, poignantly remarks, “Water always flows downhill,” emphasizing that what happens upstream inevitably affects those living downstream—a law of gravity and humanity alike. He stresses that activities upstream must be managed responsibly to avoid polluting the environment for those downstream, underscoring it as a duty. Suruga’s quiet but passionate argument captures the delicate balance between progress and nature.
Initially indifferent, the corporate representatives slowly begin to sympathize with the villagers’ concerns. However, their corporate superiors dismiss these findings, instructing them to win over Takumi with gifts and the offer of a caretaker job for the proposed camp—a gesture that reveals the insidious nature of corporate exploitation.
Takumi refuses the offer, but the representatives persist, even expressing a desire to settle in the countryside, with Takumi as a mentor. During their conversation, they hear a gunshot, and Takumi explains that hunters are in the area. When Mayuzumi inquires whether wild deer pose a threat to humans, Takumi responds that deer generally avoid people, but a wounded deer or a parent unable to flee might attack. He adds, with a frown, that if the glamping project goes forward, the deer will have nowhere to go. His murmured question, “Then where will they go?” hangs in the air, underscoring the looming environmental threat.
The narrative takes a darker turn when Takumi, engrossed in his meeting with the representatives, forgets to pick up Hana from school again. As night falls, the villagers launch a desperate search for the missing girl. As Takumi ventured into the forest, Takahashi joined him to assist. Eventually, they find Hana in an open field, approaching a wounded deer and its calf. Just as Takahashi hurriedly moves to help Hana, the tension escalates when Takumi unexpectedly attacks Takahashi, knocking him unconscious and surprising the onlookers.
The camera captures this intense moment, and the already bewildered audience is left anxiously wondering what has happened to Hana, who was just a few steps away. As Takumi approaches Hana, leaving Takahashi’s body behind, it becomes apparent that the wounded deer are no longer present. Instead, Hana’s lifeless body lies on a bed of ice. Takumi checks for signs of life by placing his fingers under Hana’s nose and discovers she is dead. He disappears into the misty forest with Hana in his arms. The film concludes on a haunting note, with the sound of footsteps and labored breathing fading into darkness, leaving the viewer to grapple with the unsettling events that have unfolded.
Why did Takumi stop Takahashi from reaching Hana? Was Hana truly there, or was this a reconstruction of an earlier event in Takumi’s mind? Perhaps Hana was attacked by the wounded deer hours before they found her. Like a wild deer, Takumi is a grieving parent, trapped in the harsh reality of losing both his spouse and now his child. His pain drives him to react instinctively—lashing out, striking back. Takumi’s actions are not born of malice, as the film’s title, Evil Does Not Exist, suggests. Rather, they arise from the primal instincts of a creature in distress. His assault on Takahashi is not fueled by hatred, but by a visceral, instinctive response to the threats encroaching on his world—much like a wounded deer attacking without concern for others’ motives. While the story weaves in themes of frustration and the looming menace of the glamping project, the metaphor of the wounded deer is key, mirroring the film’s central idea that “evil” does not truly exist.
“The unfortunate truth about life is that everyone has their reasons.” These words from one of Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s interviews at the New York Film Festival echo in my mind after watching Evil Does Not Exist. They remind me that the innocence of nature can only be preserved by confronting all that is neither innocent nor natural. If you cherish nature’s gentle smile, you must also be prepared for its fury in the form of earthquakes or tsunamis. If cherry blossoms are part of nature, so too are volcanoes. In the natural world, nothing is truly evil.
Debarati Gupta, Filmmaker, Columnist & Guest Lecturer at the University of Calcutta