“I’m back,” Hamaguchi Ryûsuke exuberantly proclaimed—in English no less—when introducing his latest film, Evil Does Not Exist, to a rapturous response from a New York Film Festival crowd in 2023. His punchy opening line was more overtly declarative than the work he was there to present. After his two-release breakout year in 2021 culminated in an Oscar victory for Drive My Car, Hamaguchi might have taken the familiar path of following up such a win with a big directorial proclamation. Instead, his latest feature belies the nature of its title and proves to be more of a question than a statement.
Some of this may be due to the genesis of Evil Does Not Exist, which doesn’t lie entirely with Hamaguchi himself. Ishibashi Eiko, his composer on Drive My Car, approached the director to create footage to accompany her live performances. Inspiration struck, and Hamaguchi’s remit expanded...
Some of this may be due to the genesis of Evil Does Not Exist, which doesn’t lie entirely with Hamaguchi himself. Ishibashi Eiko, his composer on Drive My Car, approached the director to create footage to accompany her live performances. Inspiration struck, and Hamaguchi’s remit expanded...
- 5/7/2024
- by Marshall Shaffer
- Slant Magazine
After years of making films in his native Japan, writer-director Ryusuke Hamaguchi found unexpected global success in 2021 with “Drive My Car.”
Adapted and expanded from short stories by Haruki Murakami, it’s an exquisite drama about a grieving theater director staging a multilingual “Uncle Vanya,” and his relationship with the pensive young woman employed to drive his cherry-red Saab.
Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival, where Hamaguchi and co-writer Takamasa Oe won the Best Screenplay prize, “Drive My Car” went on to dominate the fall festival circuit. The film clocked up an astonishing four nominations at the 2022 Oscars, including Best Picture and a Best Director nod for Hamaguchi, and went on to win Japan’s first Oscar for Best International Film.
Hamaguchi’s latest film, “Evil Does Not Exist” is to some extent a response to that overwhelming acclaim. “I knew that I wanted my next work to be very...
Adapted and expanded from short stories by Haruki Murakami, it’s an exquisite drama about a grieving theater director staging a multilingual “Uncle Vanya,” and his relationship with the pensive young woman employed to drive his cherry-red Saab.
Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival, where Hamaguchi and co-writer Takamasa Oe won the Best Screenplay prize, “Drive My Car” went on to dominate the fall festival circuit. The film clocked up an astonishing four nominations at the 2022 Oscars, including Best Picture and a Best Director nod for Hamaguchi, and went on to win Japan’s first Oscar for Best International Film.
Hamaguchi’s latest film, “Evil Does Not Exist” is to some extent a response to that overwhelming acclaim. “I knew that I wanted my next work to be very...
- 4/30/2024
- by John Forde
- Indiewire
Clockwise from bottom left: Good One (Metrograph Pictures), Deadpool & Wolverine (Disney/Marvel), The Watchers (Warner Bros.), Alien: Romulus (20th Century Studios)Graphic: The A.V. Club
Yesterday, we took a look at the films that really stand out to us this summer, but there are still plenty of other movies on...
Yesterday, we took a look at the films that really stand out to us this summer, but there are still plenty of other movies on...
- 4/30/2024
- by Jen Lennon, Drew Gillis, Cindy White, Jacob Oller, Matt Schimkowitz, and Saloni Gajjar
- avclub.com
Evil Does Not ExistPhoto: Janus Films
There are few things more bone-chilling than the real-life evils set upon our planet and its people each and every day. This is the type of horror Japanese director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi is contending with in Evil Does Not Exist, the stirring and eerie follow-up to his Oscar-winning 2021 film,...
There are few things more bone-chilling than the real-life evils set upon our planet and its people each and every day. This is the type of horror Japanese director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi is contending with in Evil Does Not Exist, the stirring and eerie follow-up to his Oscar-winning 2021 film,...
- 3/26/2024
- by Emma Keates
- avclub.com
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