Face the Music

Hamaguchi Ryusuke on Evil Does Not Exist

BEATRICE LOAYZA

Hamaguchi Ryusuke’s sublime eco-fable, Evil Does Not Exist, begins and ends with the plangent score by Ishibashi Eiko, played fortissimo over an extended tracking shot facing skywards. A forest canopy, stark and stripped of its foliage by winter’s spell, appears like latticework through which daylight passes with an eerie vibrancy. Riding this sonic wavelength, one is immediately locked into the film’s peculiar pitch, a mix of awe, fragility, and horror quite unlike the Japanese filmmaker’s previous work. Instead, this foreboding feature hews closer to the films of Hamaguchi’s former teacher and occasional collaborator Kurosawa Kiyoshi, whose films strike a similarly otherworldly balance of moody contemplation ambiguous dread (the woodlands mystery Charisma [2000] stands out as a clear parallel). Evil Does Not Exist, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the…

You're reading a preview of

Cinema Scope (Digital) - 1 Issue, Issue 97 - Winter 2024

DiscountMags is a licensed distributor (not a publisher) of the above content and Publication through Zinio LLC. Accordingly, we have no editorial control over the Publications. Any opinions, advice, statements, services, offers or other information or content expressed or made available by third parties, including those made in Publications offered on our website, are those of the respective author(s) or publisher(s) and not of DiscountMags. DiscountMags does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, truthfulness, or usefulness of all or any portion of any publication or any services or offers made by third parties, nor will we be liable for any loss or damage caused by your reliance on information contained in any Publication, or your use of services offered, or your acceptance of any offers made through the Service or the Publications. For content removal requests, please contact Zinio.