One of the best surprises in cinema this year was the news that Ryusuke Hamaguchi, just two years after his perfect one-two punch of Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy and Drive My Car, had secretly shot and completed another film that was to premiere in just a few weeks at Venice Film Festival. After picking up the Grand Jury Prize there, the serene and expertly scripted Evil Does Not Exist will now stop by the 61st New York Film Festival ahead of a to-be-announced release from Sideshow and Janus Films. Ahead of the premiere, the first trailer has arrived.
Rory O’Connor said in his review, “A quiet, funny, confounding mystery, Evil plays out amongst the forests and streams of a remote village close to Tokyo. Tensions are raised when two representatives for the glamping company, Takahashi (Ryuji Kosaka) and Mayuzumi (Ayaka Shibutani), arrive to talk things over. The locals, in particular a man named Takumi (a tightly wound performance by Hitoshi Omika, a star of Fortune and Fantasy), voice their concerns about how it might affect the town’s drinking water. The proprietor of a noodle restaurant wonders if her Udon will taste the same. “Everything that happens upstream,” an older man sagely explains, “affects what happens downstream.” When the reps’ attempts to dissuade anxieties fail, they decide to meet with Takumi to hash it out.”
See the trailer below via Screen Daily.
