Greater than ever, it’s onerous to think about a world the place evil doesn’t exist, so it ought to come as no shock that the world captured in Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s movie with that exact same title feels out of step with our personal.
“Evil Does Not Exist,” the Japanese auteur’s follow-up to “Drive My Automobile,” opens with an extended shot that tracks via the forest, gazing up on the sky via intersecting branches that crisscross above. The tempo is calm and unhurried, leisurely even, if not for the strings that accompany it. Ishibashi Eiko’s rating, her second for Hamaguchi, is calming, too, at first. However then discordant notes step by step weave in, hinting at one thing darker below the melody and behind the bushes. The longer this shot continues, the extra eerie it feels, as if we’re gliding into one other actuality. Immediately, it ends abruptly, jolting the viewers into a special world the place the principles don’t fairly apply. Or no less than, not within the methods you would possibly count on.
As “Evil Does Not Exist” unfolds, efforts to floor us in a actuality like our personal by no means fairly sit proper, not even within the movie’s most banal moments, and that’s as a result of it’s all constructing towards one thing otherworldly by the tip, one thing primal that’s far faraway from day-to-day life. Now, what if we informed you that preliminary soundscape and the rating that follows may pull you into one more actuality that’s very related however wildly completely different nonetheless, one intentionally additional out of contact with the already jarring world of “Evil Does Not Exist”?
Enter “Reward,” a daring new collaboration that began when Eiko reached out to Hamaguchi and requested if he may movie new visuals for her upcoming stay performances. The Japanese multi-instrumentalist has been pushing boundaries in kind and style for years, taking part in with all the things from chamber pop to jazz improv throughout numerous mediums, so with their prior expertise working collectively on “Drive My Automobile,” the formidable duo have been a pure match to create one thing new that fuses movie with Eiko’s distinctive tackle stay music.
The unique footage Hamaguchi shot began out as a silent 30-minute brief, which he finally expanded into what we now know as “Evil Does Not Exist,” final yr’s Grand Jury Prize winner on the Venice Movie Pageant. However that’s only one facet of the challenge. Like “Evil Does Not Exist,” “Reward” additionally revolves round Takumi and Hana, a person and his daughter whose serene, rural village is disrupted by the approaching development of a glamping web site. The very same footage is used on this movie, albeit by way of a extra condensed 80-minute working time, however the way it’s introduced recontextualizes “Evil’s” authentic fable totally.
Whereas dialogue performs a key function all through the Venice prize winner, particularly in that tense, uneasy city assembly, “Reward” is a wordless counterpart the place diegetic sound is subsumed nearly totally by Eiko’s rating. Crucially, stated rating is carried out by Eiko herself in individual at every of the movie’s uncommon world screenings. The result’s far much less story-led, though key situations of dialogue and even snippets of the plot’s description pop up in occasional title playing cards that assist focus the movie’s narrative in an analogous vein to the silent motion pictures of yesteryear. But when something, “Reward” is trying ahead fairly than again, proposing a completely new sort of cinematic expertise the place the director’s reduce is reimagined as one thing extra akin to a composer’s reduce as a substitute.
In “Evil Does Not Exist,” Eiko’s rating already felt fairly harmonious and at one with the movie’s pure imagery and melancholic tone. Echoes of that ice-encrusted lake or tall pines piercing the panorama might be heard and felt all through her music, which ebbs and flows just like the speeding water or the wind rustling via bushes. But in “Reward,” the composition is much more integral, completely synchronized with the cinematography and likewise Eiko’s personal private response to the story, which shifts and alters barely in each efficiency because of the stay nature of all of it. The music isn’t only a character in and of itself in “Reward.” It’s an energetic narrator who guides us via a narrative the place the anomaly already integral to “Evil Does Not Exist” is heightened tenfold once more.
What’s misplaced by eradicating Hamaguchi’s dialogue, which is very riveting throughout that aforementioned city assembly and the automotive trip that follows, is gained elsewhere by utilizing the identical footage in a really completely different manner. With a number of the scenes eliminated, condensed, and reordered totally, the story turns into tougher to observe in “Reward,” however that’s the entire level. Even in the event you’ve already seen “Evil Does Not Exist,” that doesn’t matter as a result of this isn’t the identical story. It exists in a really related, parallel world of types, however Eiko’s stay rating breathes new life into it, one which calls for your consideration over any makes an attempt to make sense of what’s truly occurring past your speedy emotional response.
That eerie ambiance “Evil Does Not Exist” step by step builds towards is extra pronounced all through “Reward” due to its emphasis on feeling over narrative, giving audiences extra space to think about the music’s intent and the way these discordant undertones impression the story, particularly in the case of these horrifying final moments. In that regard, “Reward” is tougher to grasp but much more congruent with the ending that these two movies share, and that’s as a result of it was all the time purported to be intentionally ambiguous in a bid to unsettle the characters and viewers alike. The stretches of silence periodically used all through contribute to that impact as nicely. However in “Reward,” this void of sound is tangibly current within the area audiences share with Eiko, who pauses her work within the room to construct extra pressure.
This stay part ensures that those that expertise “Reward” firsthand at New York’s Lincoln Heart on Might 1 and a couple of might expertise one thing barely completely different than the Hong Kong Worldwide Movie Pageant efficiency that Indiewire joined on March 30, but the 2 will nonetheless mirror one another in a lot the identical manner that “Reward” and “Evil” do. And therein lies the hypnotic enchantment of Eiko and Hamaguchi’s daring new collaboration.
What began out as a one-off experimental endeavor between the pair challenges the notion of what a standard director’s reduce might be via this newfound emphasis on the artistic energy that composers additionally maintain over visible storytelling. So who’s to say a challenge like “Reward” ought to stay a one-off? At a time when theaters are struggling to carry folks in, this concept of a “composer’s reduce” that remixes and reimagines pre-existing movies in a stay efficiency area has the potential to reinvigorate cinema, opening up new prospects for theaters and movie festivals alike. Whether or not that truly occurs stays to be seen, particularly as there can be logistical issues to think about.
However even when “Reward” conjures up only one or two filmmakers and composers to strategy their storytelling in a brand new sort of manner, Hamaguchi’s newest movie will become a much-needed reward to the trade in additional methods than one.
“GIFT: A Movie by Ryusuke Hamaguchi X Stay Rating by Eiko Ishibashi” performs Might 1 and a couple of on the Walter Reade Theater at Movie at Lincoln Heart. “Evil Does Not Exist” opens in U.S. theaters Might 3.