I can't believe the ending, I was confused, mad, in awe, so many emotions. Is a clean cut of an ending. The director says I'm done here do your job now.
You could see the tragedy coming from far off but it was no easier to take. Gunshot, deer disease, deer retaliation? Did it matter that we didn’t know why the mother was missing? Tragedy is felt not figured. Pain and loss is not evil. Its part of caring and caring necessary for living.
Off topic, but your 'A Message From the Heart' video was just what I needed to hear/see during one of my darkest hours. Thank you for helping me through, Maggie.
Loved the review. Its a bit ironic his shortest film is one that challenges the viewer. Not out of the length of a pure bafflement and meditative effect. With his other films theres a very clear intent, with this I often felt like I was lost but so enthralled.
Drive My Car challenged the viewer through its use of three narratives told through different mediums and its excellent use of blocking and editing to cast doubt even on the main narrative. Intimacy was by far the most challenging work of his I’ve seen, though
bergman has said he was heavily influenced by kurasawa when he made the virgin spring. in an interview he quipped “i was practically a samurai myself” 😊
A line I thought of with the ending was when the main guy was taking about upsetting the balance of things. Maybe that's too abstract but I think there's a correlation.
I like hearing the word ecosystem in the view reviews I've seen of this movie. It helped me think of the different groups as ecosystems themselves (villagers, glampers, and deer) because there wasn't all that much about what the people do for the environment. Even in the meeting scene where a person talked about not wanting to spoil the water for those down stream, it's more about the people than the environment, the environments just kinda there.
** Spoiler Alert "** : After the scene of the shot, they talked in the car about the potencial risk of the deers, which it just react when in danger. One animal were shot up; so the wise father imagined what happened BEFORE see the corpse of his child on the ground. So He has an attack of fury against the incorporated man, who where on his side. Both attacks were Nature`s response itself! (sorry for my english).
I’ve seen this film in Spain in original language with Spanish subs. I don’t speak Spanish but I thought I was on point until the ending. I’ve asked the janitor, but he haven’t seen the movie yet then. I think it all speaks to the coziness of nature as opposed to the dread of unknown. And that fragile balance is our home up until there’ll be somebody to threaten it. Hence the name of the film, Evil Does Not Exist, it’s all about what we know and what we wonder about(looking at the cerebral structure of the trees)
** Spoiler Alert ** For me, the conversation about "are deers dangerous" when they are in the car, especially the line around 1 hour 27 minutes and 57 seconds in: "unless it's a gun-shot deer, or its parent", foreshadows what takes place later on... That father was calm and as docile as a deer throughout, even holding back the young buck in the meeting, and doing his best to stay patient with the people from the city... but when his daughter was in danger of being killed, he snapped. The daughter had spent hours in a tense standoff with the injured deer -she knew to keep still even as the villagers were out looking for her. The father also knew to keep still and keep a safe distance from a wild animal that might snap. The talent agent is a futher step removed, he doesn’t know to keep still, he naively doesn’t know the deer will react to movement just like he doesn’t realise the father will also react instinctively (he is also a wild animal). It's a stack of dominoes ready to topple over. Then the bumbling talent agent just bulldozes through (carelessly caring) and the father has to stop him (he does a martial arts move to use his forward momentum to topple his balance). But it's too late. By the time he has pulled him to the ground, the deer has already brought down the daughter and so the father continues in a fit of release, physically venting on the talent agent. The whole house of cards tumbles in freefall and releases the film's pent up tension... like the cascading river. What happens at the top effects everything below. It's not evil, it's just Cause and Effect. Everything is interconnected, it wasn’t out of the blue, it was going to happen. The tree branches we see from underneath are interconnected to the sky, they are interconnected to eachother despite the tree trunks rooted on either side of the road. One side connected to the other through higher levels. (A symbol of non-duality?) Decisions higher up the food chain in Tokyo effected the people below. The loss of connection to nature in Tokyo eventually led to the death of the young daughter. It's not evil, it's inevitable. (Dependent origination) The city folk have forgotten that nature is also red in tooth and claw. Nature is not just the stillness of the forest (forest dwellers = buddhist monks) for glamping. It is a force to be respected. They show respect to the elders (the higher up) but have lost the respect for the higher forces of nature which the chief himself said "seeks balance" - even if it means violence in order to do so. (zero sum game) The warnings were there all along, and then we are surpised when it suddenly snaps? It's a warning to us in the civilised world. The balance is fragile and no matter the politeness or friendliness that has gone before, it could all change in an instant, at any time. (Anicca - impermanence)
Bruh did he have to murder the guy in cold blood? Lmao that dude was a sweetheart, he didn’t even have to be out there helping him find the girl. Your interpretation makes sense but at the end of the day this is my problem with Japanese cinema, their heavy use of symbolism just turns to nonsensical silliness. What a stupid ending, what boring pretentious squabble. Also, idk if the villagers were directed to be stoic by the director but the only person who emotes at all during the entire movie is the murdered talent agent, everyone else comes across as an emotionless anti social android. I don’t think the father’s face changed the entire movie but I guess it makes sense when he turns out to be a ruthless psychopath lol, guess I’m just not as introspective and enlightened as some of ya’ll
@@bigboss-yv2nr Yeah, I hear you, he initially just waved his hand at the guy, and he could have just motioned again rather than tackling him to the ground like that. For me, the movie was more like Italian Neorealism than over symbolic. What you see is what you get. It's the way Japanese people are, really conscious of their gestures and sublte movements. I get why it looks like they are anti-social androids to us in the West, their cuisine is so alien to ours never mind their social conditioning. They're groomed from a young age not to cause a stir which leads to a lot of repressed emotions ready to explode. A trigger is just a small mechanism that sets off what’s already loaded. What pops into my mind is Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars. I mean, of all the places… and in front of all his peers. Why? Why would anyone in his situation snap like that? Wtf was he thinking? He wasn’t really thinking. On face value, it was stupid. But deeper down there was so much tension that erupted out of him. I can only imagine the amount of repressed emotions he lives with on a daily basis. It’s Tokyo levels of stress right there. And then he tries to defend his wife’s honour and ironically disgraces himself in the process. The irony! Was it really Jada’s side-eye that set it all off? Kinda, but I can’t help link the violent outburst to Will Smith’s past. Years before this, in his biography, he mentioned not being able to defend his mother when his father was beating the living daylights out of her. I reckon that this repressed energy from childhood, along with all the tension of the night, was released in a snap moment for all the world to see. Was it premeditated? Was it evil? For me it was animal, the fight flight defence mode was activated and all that ‘Peace, Love and Forgiveness’ spirituality went out the window. We weren’t watching Will anymore. It was all of us on that stage. He showed us the beast we all live with lying under the surface, ready to pounce, ready to attack, verbally or even physically in order to protect the thing it loves (or at least, holds on to). The same mechanisms in Will Smith were at play in this Japanese father, they just didn’t have the narrative build up the way John Wick or Tarantino’s revenge movies set us up for, you know, the feel good release of tension and venting of pent up animal aggression. In a way, Evil Does Not Exist is kind of a super subtle version of The Taken. We’re so conditioned to see Liam Neeson as the protective father figure, we know there’s gonna be some mad vengeance and retribution before we even push the play button. Does that mean we all have a latent inner psychopath waiting to over-react at any moment? I think a lot of film-makers show that we do. It’s just that usually, the script justifies the actions and we’re more empathetic to the reasons why someone would resort to violence because it’s foreseeable, we’ve been led up to the moment when the hero can legitimately turn psycho and smash in people’s faces. In this film, the hero’s final battle to protect-his-loved-one is a total shock because we didn’t see it coming, even though the signs and underlying tensions were there the whole time.
@@amomentinnature willl smith bitch slapped a dude who was talking shit about his wife. This guy murdered the guy in cold blood for absolutely no reason. I get the point you’re trying to make but it doesn’t compare. The ending of this movie just comes across as absolute silliness.
@bigboss-yv2nr Right, I get where you're coming from now: There's no legitimate reason for why the father should turn to murder. There's no justification for killing such a sweet innocent man and that's why the ending is silly. The father is not some dumb wounded deer. That's not a good enough analogy (and neither is Will Smith). Thanks for sharing your point of view. I see why it's a polarising film. On one side, there's no moral ambiguity at play here. The father should have known better. End of story. Why overthink it? For other viewers, there's enough of a backstory to provide context for why someone would flip into animal fight flight mode and it makes them ask questions in an attempt to understand what just happened (without actually condoning murder). It's open ended. Maybe the director is messing with that second group's heads on purpose. Maybe he is the evil one: Muah ha ha ha!!
@@bigboss-yv2nrHe's not a sweet innocent man, he's a cynical agent of capitalism, who tried to manipulate and corrupt him with a gift and compliments into accepting the glamping project that will soil their environment and community just so some people can make money. On a thesis, the movie asks whether violence is necessary/acceptable to fight back against the destruction of nature that is currently making the earth unhabitable within the next century or two. The ending leaves that open to you to question and ponder. On another end you might say he is turning animalistic, so this inturn towards nature also means losing one's humanity, or abandoning human morals for basic laws of nature, predator vs pray, parents killing things they feel are endangering the life of their small ones on pure instinct. You are looking at this ending too logically, literally, when it is more fable or parable or something.
Some recommendations for topic videos : 1. Movies you didn't liked initially but liked after rewatching them 2. Most overrated TV Shows 3. Favourite Bond movies 4. Best cinematography/use of colours in movies
I received a notification about this new video, and I immediately went to watch the movie before watching the review. The film is absolute poetry... I also loved his previous film "Drive My Car."
In one of his interviews, Hamaguchi was told that a viewer watched the film 3 times before being able to reconcile the concepts and symbolism. Hamaguchi smiled wryly and said that yes, it should be seen 3 times. Obviously the smile was as a producer/director/writer marketing his work, but I do think this is the type of film that not only needs repeated viewings, but also time, to experience the cold unfeeling nature of life, even in the absence of evil.
Never seen your channel before, found this because none of my regular reviewers had this movie. Great and interesting review, I subscribed! But why is your video mirrored?
I really love your channel and I enjoy your analysis. My favorite review of yours is Deadman, which is also one of my favorite movies of the 90s. Thank you so much. :) Now, about Evil does not exist. I've seen it this winter in my hometown on a film festival. In my opinion this movie is about the unbreakable bond between humans and nature. In this movie there are people, plants and animals, so nature is the sum of all those parts. It is a sum of the parts that can't be added together, because they are so different. This seems like a main paradox and the topic of the movie. So we are watching several different movies, with different genres and styles, that are connected, somehow, in this movie, and still they are part of it. Like all the living beings in nature. About the ending - I think that main character is doing what animal would do in similar situation. :) Sorry for my bad English. :)
i saw the ending as another aspect of our actions indirectly causing harm, Takumis daughter dying due to his lifestyle in the forest, foreshadowed by the company woman getting cut by a branch and Takumi having a moment of realisation of the forests potential danger to his child. Ignorance is the 'evil' in these people. I love Hamaguchi's work and i think hes my favourite working director currently
Interesting, I didn't like this picture much at all. I thought the exterior photography was fantastic, but I never felt connected to anyone, nor did I sympathize with the cause in the way that was expected. It's a series of moments stitched together in an interesting way, but ultimately it did very little for me.
Since you like Isabelle Huppert as well as Asian cinema, you might like her recent contributions to Élise Girard's "Sidonie in Japan" (2023) and Hong Sang-soo's "A Traveler's Needs" (2024).
Thanks for the review and championing filmmakers like Hamguchi and (especially) Bonello. If you can squint through the terrible box office of the 2024, one can see the rumblings of a new, global cinema. This film is in conversation with Bergman and Ozu and even David Lynch -- but its thoroughly modern in its concerns and approach.
Going to assume the title is ironic, in light of the plot outline. Sounds like the old motif of animals not being capable of doing evil (unlike humans) and the philosophy of “actions themselves aren’t evil; if the intent of an action is good, the action is good.”
The movie should be called “Evil Does Not Exist Here” And I think my thought of the ending would make more sense. I really loved it too! The town hall scene was 👌
Drive My Car sets the bar very high but I’ve been told this is even better. Maybe I’m the only one who thought Drive was a more Chekhovian Body Double without the porn of course.
Completely agree my favorite movie of the year so far even though technically it’s a 2023 release , hypnotic , beautiful and tragic and yet so simple been thinking about that ending for days since I saw it , terrific movie and an excellent good take on the movie .
So far this is my movie of the year - I gave it a 5/5 (I have an excel spreadsheet that I rate movies with a grading scale). The movie subverted my expectations, was shot beautifully, presented unique and authentically written characters with great dialogue, and had a shocking, yet perfect ending in that it lets the viewers interpret what happened. I viewed that she died of a fever / temperature regulation, the gut-shot deer was a symbol of her walking toward heaven, and she died on the land of where the Playmode project would have been constructed. In a height of emotion and for the sake of “balance” (Takumi mentions at the tow hall meeting) and grief of the circumstances of his life, Takumi kills the man, and treks back through the woods.
So my interpretation is that the two talent agents are actually the most normal, level headed people in the movie, their bosses are capitalistic greedy imbeciles and the villagers are all anti social sociopathic inbred cultists who don’t know how to relate to other people outside their community and are obsessed with water. Oh and did I mention the main guy also turns out to be a psychopathic cold blooded murderer as well 😅
The audience I saw it with was stunned. I was ambivalent about it but the more I think about it the more I like it. Movie was all about balance. Cause and effect. The other village that shot deer were careless. Shooting deer in gut for sport which makes them hostile. The talent agent guy was careless for his sudden movements. The daughter was careless for wandering too far on her own. Yet none of them are evil. Well maybe the dad at the end 😅
Please watch and review Ship of Theseus. It is a very philosophical movie about the meaning of life. It It is available free on UA-cam with subtitles❤❤❤❤
I struggled with this movie lol, if disposable childish garbage like Avengers is on one extreme of the spectrum this boring pretentious squabble is on the other imo. At the end of the day I watch movies to be entertained, not be lulled to sleep by a bunch of anti social robots walking around for two hours obsessing over water
So disagree. You didn't find it interesting, which I cannot relate to, but it's a reaction to which you're entitled. However, I think you're unfair to call it pretentious as an explanation of your distaste. That it is not
Often when people refer to something as pretentious it is just a sign of a fragile ego and not really understanding what pretentious means. It’s a simple way to write something off while being snobby at the same time.
angelthman No. I am saying often what people call pretentious is often just difficult or arty. Pretentious cinema is cinema that pretends to be about more than it actually is. I’d say films like A Few Good Men are pretentious with its overwrought monologues and speeches. It is entertaining though. Some of the Matrix movies are quite pretentious.
@@ssssssstssssssss You're re-defining the word to fit your narrative. Pretentious can mean different things. It's subjective. I'd say a film that is boring though pretending it's saying something more than it is would be pretentious.
Kind of the same way I felt with Begotten. It's a weird, horrific, surrealistic movie that really serves well as a cinematic MacGuffin, leaving the whole body of work open to many interpretations. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begotten_(film)
I can't believe the ending, I was confused, mad, in awe, so many emotions. Is a clean cut of an ending. The director says I'm done here do your job now.
best film reviewer on youtube. you are an invaluable resource
You could see the tragedy coming from far off but it was no easier to take. Gunshot, deer disease, deer retaliation? Did it matter that we didn’t know why the mother was missing? Tragedy is felt not figured. Pain and loss is not evil. Its part of caring and caring necessary for living.
Off topic, but your 'A Message From the Heart' video was just what I needed to hear/see during one of my darkest hours. Thank you for helping me through, Maggie.
love your reviews, this is next up on my watchlist I can't wait to check it out!! Sounds very interesting
I felt like I was the river looking up at the forest
Loved the review. Its a bit ironic his shortest film is one that challenges the viewer. Not out of the length of a pure bafflement and meditative effect. With his other films theres a very clear intent, with this I often felt like I was lost but so enthralled.
Drive My Car challenged the viewer through its use of three narratives told through different mediums and its excellent use of blocking and editing to cast doubt even on the main narrative. Intimacy was by far the most challenging work of his I’ve seen, though
bergman has said he was heavily influenced by kurasawa when he made the virgin spring. in an interview he quipped “i was practically a samurai myself” 😊
A line I thought of with the ending was when the main guy was taking about upsetting the balance of things. Maybe that's too abstract but I think there's a correlation.
I like hearing the word ecosystem in the view reviews I've seen of this movie. It helped me think of the different groups as ecosystems themselves (villagers, glampers, and deer) because there wasn't all that much about what the people do for the environment. Even in the meeting scene where a person talked about not wanting to spoil the water for those down stream, it's more about the people than the environment, the environments just kinda there.
** Spoiler Alert "** : After the scene of the shot, they talked in the car about the potencial risk of the deers, which it just react when in danger. One animal were shot up; so the wise father imagined what happened BEFORE see the corpse of his child on the ground. So He has an attack of fury against the incorporated man, who where on his side. Both attacks were Nature`s response itself! (sorry for my english).
Another great review. You seem to touch on the things about a movie that matter to me. Thanks for all the great reviews and discussions.
I’ve seen this film in Spain in original language with Spanish subs. I don’t speak Spanish but I thought I was on point until the ending. I’ve asked the janitor, but he haven’t seen the movie yet then. I think it all speaks to the coziness of nature as opposed to the dread of unknown. And that fragile balance is our home up until there’ll be somebody to threaten it. Hence the name of the film, Evil Does Not Exist, it’s all about what we know and what we wonder about(looking at the cerebral structure of the trees)
Your reviews are superb. Your insights are often riveting.
Thank you for your time and talents and generosity your devotion to your channel. I”m such a fan!
** Spoiler Alert **
For me, the conversation about "are deers dangerous" when they are in the car, especially the line around 1 hour 27 minutes and 57 seconds in: "unless it's a gun-shot deer, or its parent", foreshadows what takes place later on... That father was calm and as docile as a deer throughout, even holding back the young buck in the meeting, and doing his best to stay patient with the people from the city... but when his daughter was in danger of being killed, he snapped.
The daughter had spent hours in a tense standoff with the injured deer -she knew to keep still even as the villagers were out looking for her. The father also knew to keep still and keep a safe distance from a wild animal that might snap.
The talent agent is a futher step removed, he doesn’t know to keep still, he naively doesn’t know the deer will react to movement just like he doesn’t realise the father will also react instinctively (he is also a wild animal). It's a stack of dominoes ready to topple over.
Then the bumbling talent agent just bulldozes through (carelessly caring) and the father has to stop him (he does a martial arts move to use his forward momentum to topple his balance). But it's too late. By the time he has pulled him to the ground, the deer has already brought down the daughter and so the father continues in a fit of release, physically venting on the talent agent. The whole house of cards tumbles in freefall and releases the film's pent up tension... like the cascading river. What happens at the top effects everything below. It's not evil, it's just Cause and Effect.
Everything is interconnected, it wasn’t out of the blue, it was going to happen. The tree branches we see from underneath are interconnected to the sky, they are interconnected to eachother despite the tree trunks rooted on either side of the road. One side connected to the other through higher levels. (A symbol of non-duality?)
Decisions higher up the food chain in Tokyo effected the people below. The loss of connection to nature in Tokyo eventually led to the death of the young daughter.
It's not evil, it's inevitable. (Dependent origination)
The city folk have forgotten that nature is also red in tooth and claw. Nature is not just the stillness of the forest (forest dwellers = buddhist monks) for glamping. It is a force to be respected. They show respect to the elders (the higher up) but have lost the respect for the higher forces of nature which the chief himself said "seeks balance" - even if it means violence in order to do so. (zero sum game)
The warnings were there all along, and then we are surpised when it suddenly snaps? It's a warning to us in the civilised world. The balance is fragile and no matter the politeness or friendliness that has gone before, it could all change in an instant, at any time. (Anicca - impermanence)
Bruh did he have to murder the guy in cold blood? Lmao that dude was a sweetheart, he didn’t even have to be out there helping him find the girl. Your interpretation makes sense but at the end of the day this is my problem with Japanese cinema, their heavy use of symbolism just turns to nonsensical silliness. What a stupid ending, what boring pretentious squabble. Also, idk if the villagers were directed to be stoic by the director but the only person who emotes at all during the entire movie is the murdered talent agent, everyone else comes across as an emotionless anti social android. I don’t think the father’s face changed the entire movie but I guess it makes sense when he turns out to be a ruthless psychopath lol, guess I’m just not as introspective and enlightened as some of ya’ll
@@bigboss-yv2nr
Yeah, I hear you, he initially just waved his hand at the guy, and he could have just motioned again rather than tackling him to the ground like that.
For me, the movie was more like Italian Neorealism than over symbolic. What you see is what you get. It's the way Japanese people are, really conscious of their gestures and sublte movements. I get why it looks like they are anti-social androids to us in the West, their cuisine is so alien to ours never mind their social conditioning. They're groomed from a young age not to cause a stir which leads to a lot of repressed emotions ready to explode.
A trigger is just a small mechanism that sets off what’s already loaded.
What pops into my mind is Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars. I mean, of all the places… and in front of all his peers. Why? Why would anyone in his situation snap like that? Wtf was he thinking? He wasn’t really thinking. On face value, it was stupid. But deeper down there was so much tension that erupted out of him. I can only imagine the amount of repressed emotions he lives with on a daily basis. It’s Tokyo levels of stress right there.
And then he tries to defend his wife’s honour and ironically disgraces himself in the process. The irony!
Was it really Jada’s side-eye that set it all off?
Kinda, but I can’t help link the violent outburst to Will Smith’s past. Years before this, in his biography, he mentioned not being able to defend his mother when his father was beating the living daylights out of her. I reckon that this repressed energy from childhood, along with all the tension of the night, was released in a snap moment for all the world to see. Was it premeditated? Was it evil? For me it was animal, the fight flight defence mode was activated and all that ‘Peace, Love and Forgiveness’ spirituality went out the window. We weren’t watching Will anymore. It was all of us on that stage. He showed us the beast we all live with lying under the surface, ready to pounce, ready to attack, verbally or even physically in order to protect the thing it loves (or at least, holds on to).
The same mechanisms in Will Smith were at play in this Japanese father, they just didn’t have the narrative build up the way John Wick or Tarantino’s revenge movies set us up for, you know, the feel good release of tension and venting of pent up animal aggression. In a way, Evil Does Not Exist is kind of a super subtle version of The Taken. We’re so conditioned to see Liam Neeson as the protective father figure, we know there’s gonna be some mad vengeance and retribution before we even push the play button.
Does that mean we all have a latent inner psychopath waiting to over-react at any moment? I think a lot of film-makers show that we do. It’s just that usually, the script justifies the actions and we’re more empathetic to the reasons why someone would resort to violence because it’s foreseeable, we’ve been led up to the moment when the hero can legitimately turn psycho and smash in people’s faces. In this film, the hero’s final battle to protect-his-loved-one is a total shock because we didn’t see it coming, even though the signs and underlying tensions were there the whole time.
@@amomentinnature willl smith bitch slapped a dude who was talking shit about his wife. This guy murdered the guy in cold blood for absolutely no reason. I get the point you’re trying to make but it doesn’t compare. The ending of this movie just comes across as absolute silliness.
@bigboss-yv2nr
Right, I get where you're coming from now: There's no legitimate reason for why the father should turn to murder. There's no justification for killing such a sweet innocent man and that's why the ending is silly. The father is not some dumb wounded deer. That's not a good enough analogy (and neither is Will Smith).
Thanks for sharing your point of view. I see why it's a polarising film.
On one side, there's no moral ambiguity at play here. The father should have known better. End of story. Why overthink it?
For other viewers, there's enough of a backstory to provide context for why someone would flip into animal fight flight mode and it makes them ask questions in an attempt to understand what just happened (without actually condoning murder). It's open ended.
Maybe the director is messing with that second group's heads on purpose. Maybe he is the evil one: Muah ha ha ha!!
@@bigboss-yv2nrHe's not a sweet innocent man, he's a cynical agent of capitalism, who tried to manipulate and corrupt him with a gift and compliments into accepting the glamping project that will soil their environment and community just so some people can make money. On a thesis, the movie asks whether violence is necessary/acceptable to fight back against the destruction of nature that is currently making the earth unhabitable within the next century or two. The ending leaves that open to you to question and ponder. On another end you might say he is turning animalistic, so this inturn towards nature also means losing one's humanity, or abandoning human morals for basic laws of nature, predator vs pray, parents killing things they feel are endangering the life of their small ones on pure instinct. You are looking at this ending too logically, literally, when it is more fable or parable or something.
Some recommendations for topic videos :
1. Movies you didn't liked initially but liked after rewatching them
2. Most overrated TV Shows
3. Favourite Bond movies
4. Best cinematography/use of colours in movies
Just discovered your channel. Instant sub. Clean, simple, thoughtful.
I received a notification about this new video, and I immediately went to watch the movie before watching the review. The film is absolute poetry... I also loved his previous film "Drive My Car."
In one of his interviews, Hamaguchi was told that a viewer watched the film 3 times before being able to reconcile the concepts and symbolism. Hamaguchi smiled wryly and said that yes, it should be seen 3 times. Obviously the smile was as a producer/director/writer marketing his work, but I do think this is the type of film that not only needs repeated viewings, but also time, to experience the cold unfeeling nature of life, even in the absence of evil.
Yes, I've seen that interview. Three times still didnt work for me lol.
Saw this in a theater. Left quite perplexed but it also reminded me of Cristian Mungiu's R.M.N with the town hall scenes
Yes that's exactly the movie I thought of as well. Similar feeling (and even somewhat similar ending).
Never seen your channel before, found this because none of my regular reviewers had this movie. Great and interesting review, I subscribed! But why is your video mirrored?
I really love your channel and I enjoy your analysis. My favorite review of yours is Deadman, which is also one of my favorite movies of the 90s. Thank you so much. :) Now, about Evil does not exist. I've seen it this winter in my hometown on a film festival. In my opinion this movie is about the unbreakable bond between humans and nature. In this movie there are people, plants and animals, so nature is the sum of all those parts. It is a sum of the parts that can't be added together, because they are so different. This seems like a main paradox and the topic of the movie. So we are watching several different movies, with different genres and styles, that are connected, somehow, in this movie, and still they are part of it. Like all the living beings in nature. About the ending - I think that main character is doing what animal would do in similar situation. :) Sorry for my bad English. :)
i saw the ending as another aspect of our actions indirectly causing harm, Takumis daughter dying due to his lifestyle in the forest, foreshadowed by the company woman getting cut by a branch and Takumi having a moment of realisation of the forests potential danger to his child. Ignorance is the 'evil' in these people. I love Hamaguchi's work and i think hes my favourite working director currently
This is sublime filmmaking. Cannot wait to watch it. Btw have you watched La Chimera? Would love your take on it.
Off topic but I'd love to hear your take on Stopmotion. It left me clueless but I've seen good reviews.
Interesting, I didn't like this picture much at all. I thought the exterior photography was fantastic, but I never felt connected to anyone, nor did I sympathize with the cause in the way that was expected. It's a series of moments stitched together in an interesting way, but ultimately it did very little for me.
This is one of the best pictures I've ever seen. This is a perfect film. So perfectly ambiguous without being pretentious
Since you like Isabelle Huppert as well as Asian cinema, you might like her recent contributions to Élise Girard's "Sidonie in Japan" (2023) and Hong Sang-soo's "A Traveler's Needs" (2024).
Thanks for the review and championing filmmakers like Hamguchi and (especially) Bonello. If you can squint through the terrible box office of the 2024, one can see the rumblings of a new, global cinema. This film is in conversation with Bergman and Ozu and even David Lynch -- but its thoroughly modern in its concerns and approach.
Where did you watch this?
Never seen many movies from Japan. Maybe I should change that.
Just Asian films in general
The Wailing
Perplexing film that made me think it's a film version of slow TV, but better than that. Also, fabulous soundtrack.
Its rare to see a film where I think the ending failed, but still thought it was a good film
Going to assume the title is ironic, in light of the plot outline.
Sounds like the old motif of animals not being capable of doing evil (unlike humans) and the philosophy of “actions themselves aren’t evil; if the intent of an action is good, the action is good.”
The movie should be called “Evil Does Not Exist Here” And I think my thought of the ending would make more sense. I really loved it too! The town hall scene was 👌
Are u referring to the main character turning out to be a murdering psychopath out of nowhere?
Drive My Car sets the bar very high but I’ve been told this is even better. Maybe I’m the only one who thought Drive was a more Chekhovian Body Double without the porn of course.
Love your reviews thank you
Completely agree my favorite movie of the year so far even though technically it’s a 2023 release , hypnotic , beautiful and tragic and yet so simple been thinking about that ending for days since I saw it , terrific movie and an excellent good take on the movie .
So far this is my movie of the year - I gave it a 5/5 (I have an excel spreadsheet that I rate movies with a grading scale). The movie subverted my expectations, was shot beautifully, presented unique and authentically written characters with great dialogue, and had a shocking, yet perfect ending in that it lets the viewers interpret what happened. I viewed that she died of a fever / temperature regulation, the gut-shot deer was a symbol of her walking toward heaven, and she died on the land of where the Playmode project would have been constructed. In a height of emotion and for the sake of “balance” (Takumi mentions at the tow hall meeting) and grief of the circumstances of his life, Takumi kills the man, and treks back through the woods.
So my interpretation is that the two talent agents are actually the most normal, level headed people in the movie, their bosses are capitalistic greedy imbeciles and the villagers are all anti social sociopathic inbred cultists who don’t know how to relate to other people outside their community and are obsessed with water. Oh and did I mention the main guy also turns out to be a psychopathic cold blooded murderer as well 😅
I loved it...Right up until the end!
Maybe it was just wasted on me, but that ending was just so tonally wrong to me.
The audience I saw it with was stunned. I was ambivalent about it but the more I think about it the more I like it.
Movie was all about balance. Cause and effect.
The other village that shot deer were careless. Shooting deer in gut for sport which makes them hostile.
The talent agent guy was careless for his sudden movements.
The daughter was careless for wandering too far on her own.
Yet none of them are evil. Well maybe the dad at the end 😅
Please watch and review Ship of Theseus. It is a very philosophical movie about the meaning of life. It It is available free on UA-cam with subtitles❤❤❤❤
Oh, I didn't know this was out in the world... interesting.
If Aubrey Plaza was a film critic.
This movie sucks!
Well fuck… hadn’t really heard about this but I’m sold
I am scared mommy
Darn. Missed it.
Watch La Chimera if you get the chance. Beautiful Italian Cinema
I thought this movie was super bad. The topic has been done a thousand times before. Some scenes were so bad, I thought it was sarcasm.
Cool!👍
Gotta love them puppies
Wtf is wrong with u?
This movie sucked. Don't waste your time.
Boring movie… so slow.
I struggled with this movie lol, if disposable childish garbage like Avengers is on one extreme of the spectrum this boring pretentious squabble is on the other imo. At the end of the day I watch movies to be entertained, not be lulled to sleep by a bunch of anti social robots walking around for two hours obsessing over water
movie was not for me, nothing happened
Drive My Car was pretentious bs. Not interested. I have something against the fostering of boring cinema.
So disagree. You didn't find it interesting, which I cannot relate to, but it's a reaction to which you're entitled. However, I think you're unfair to call it pretentious as an explanation of your distaste. That it is not
Often when people refer to something as pretentious it is just a sign of a fragile ego and not really understanding what pretentious means. It’s a simple way to write something off while being snobby at the same time.
@@ssssssstssssssss Are you saying there's no such thing as pretentious cinema?
angelthman No. I am saying often what people call pretentious is often just difficult or arty. Pretentious cinema is cinema that pretends to be about more than it actually is. I’d say films like A Few Good Men are pretentious with its overwrought monologues and speeches. It is entertaining though. Some of the Matrix movies are quite pretentious.
@@ssssssstssssssss You're re-defining the word to fit your narrative. Pretentious can mean different things. It's subjective. I'd say a film that is boring though pretending it's saying something more than it is would be pretentious.
Kind of the same way I felt with Begotten. It's a weird, horrific, surrealistic movie that really serves well as a cinematic MacGuffin, leaving the whole body of work open to many interpretations. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begotten_(film)
You should be on pbs