Evil Does Not Exist May 2026

Hamaguchi’s title, then, is a provocation. To say “evil does not exist” is not to deny moral responsibility. It is to argue that evil is not a substance one possesses like a tumor or a birthmark. Instead, evil is a failure of relationship —between parent and child, between human and land, between intention and consequence. The film echoes Hannah Arendt’s concept of the “banality of evil”: the idea that the worst atrocities are not committed by monsters but by ordinary people who stop thinking about the effects of their actions. In Mizubiki, no one wakes up wanting to destroy the forest. But the forest is destroyed anyway, and a child dies, because the chain of listening was broken somewhere upstream.

Evil Does Not Exist

In Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s 2023 film Evil Does Not Exist , the title functions not as a metaphysical declaration but as a haunting question. The film, which follows a small Japanese hamlet, Mizubiki, as it resists a “glamping” development, refuses to offer a villain in a black hat. Instead, it argues that evil is not an inherent substance or a demonic force; it is a rupture —a catastrophic failure of equilibrium, humility, and attentiveness. By examining the relationship between nature, capital, and human carelessness, the film posits that evil exists only as the absence of listening, a void where consequences are ignored until they become irreversible. Evil Does Not Exist

Hamaguchi complicates this binary by refusing to demonize the corporate agents. Takahashi and his colleague, Mayuzumi, are not greedy industrialists; they are overworked Tokyo employees sent to do a dirty job. A significant portion of the film follows their bumbling attempts to sell the project to the villagers. In a crucial town hall scene, the residents do not scream or protest violently. Instead, they ask precise, patient questions about wastewater and fire risk. The true antagonist is not the messenger but the system of “impact assessment” itself—a language that reduces a living ecosystem to a checklist. Evil, the film suggests, is the bureaucratic abstraction that allows a person to build a septic tank upstream without ever drinking the water. Hamaguchi’s title, then, is a provocation