Ryusuke Hamgauchi’s latest film “Evil Does Not Exist”, which won the Grand Jury Prize when it was shown at the Venice International Film Festival in last year, is interesting to watch for several good reasons. Although it does not reach to the sublime level of achievement of his two previous works “Drive My Car” (2021) and “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy” (2021), the movie is packed with his own distinctive touches to be savored at least. In my inconsequential opinion, that is more than enough for compensating for its noticeable flaws including the abruptly baffling finale.

At first, the movie takes some time to establish its main background and characters. After the rather unnerving main title scene accompanied with Eiko Ishibachi’s score, we are introduced to a guy named Takumi (Hitoshi Omika), and then the movie patiently observes one of his daily routines. We see him collecting some water at a little fountain in the middle of the nearby forest for a local restaurant run by one of his close neighbors in the village, and then he goes to a local kindergarten for picking up his little daughter, whom he has raised alone since his wife’s departure.

During the following evening, Takumi and several other neighbors including the village chief meet together at Takumi’s house for an important issue to discuss about. Some company is trying to build a big site for “glamping” (It is a fancy local compound word from “glamor” and “camping”, by the way) around the village, and it will soon hold a meeting between the villagers and the two representatives of the company. Not so surprisingly, Takumi and many of his neighbors do not welcome this change that much, and we instantly sense a big trouble even though they phlegmatically discuss on their impending issue.

And things do become quite problematic right from when the meeting is started on the next day. While those two representatives try their best for persuading the villagers, the villagers start to express their strong objection against the company plan one by one for a number of understandable reasons. For example, the septic facility of that glamping may pollute the main ground water source of the village, and most of the villagers, who are quite proud of their clean and crisp nature environment, are certainly concerned a lot about this serious possibility of environment pollution.

No matter how much the company representatives try, it only becomes more evident to us that they are way over their head right from the beginning without much preparation. Hamaguchi and his crew members deftly dial up the level of tension as the interactions between the company representatives and the villagers become more intense line by line. As cinematographer Yoshio Kitagawa’s camera calmly sticks to its static position, the editing by Hamaguchi and his co-editor Azusa Yamazaki is precise and efficient as vividly conveying what is being gradually accumulated beneath the screen, and this growing tension is dramatically punctuated by a sudden moment of action timely prevented by Takumi.

Around that narrative point, Hamaguchi’s screenplay shifts itself more toward the viewpoint of the company representatives, who come to show more human sides along the story. While being well aware of how greedy and opportunistic their boss is, they come to reflect a bit on themselves as trying to finish their job as before, and that leads to another terrific moment which will remind you again of why Hamaguchi is an almost peerless filmmaker in case of shooting a conversation scene inside vehicle.

During the following last act, the movie unfortunately stumbles more than once to my little dissatisfaction. I wish Hamaguchi’s screenplay fleshed out its main characters with more details and nuances, and I am also not so sure about whether the ending works as well as intended. It caught me off guard for being a bit too blunt and jarring compared to what has been somberly and thoughtfully built up to that point, and you may actually want Hamaguchi to roll his story and characters a little more instead of making a bitter ironic point against the very title of his movie.

Anyway, the movie is still fairly engaging thanks to a number of strong elements to hold our attention enough. Again, Hamaguchi drew good performances from his main cast members, and several main cast members including Hitoshi Omika are all convincing in their unadorned natural acting while imbuing their respective roles with enough sense of life and personality. In case of Ishibashi’s score, it is inarguably the most important factor in the overall mood of the film, and I was not so surprised to learn later that the movie was initially planned as a short film to accompany Ishibashi’s music.

In conclusion, “Evil Does Not Exist” does not impress me as much as I hoped, but it reminds me again of Hamaguchi’s undeniable filmmaking talent. Although I did not like “Asako I and II” (2018) much, I was quite impressed by how “Happy Hour” (2015) could amuse and engage me for more than 5 hours, and I certainly cherished many mesmerizing moments in “Drive My Car” and “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy”. Yes, “Evil Does Not Exist” feels like a minor work in comparison, but it is worthwhile to watch especially if you have admired his works like I have, and I assure you that you will be rewarded to some degree.