Evil Does Not Exist (2023), BBC 4, BBCiPlayer, Writer and Director Ryusuke Hamaguchi.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002k7zf/evil-does-not-exist

Evil Does Not Exist - Wikipedia

I felt quite cosmopolitan having already watched one of Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s films, Drive My Car.

Evil Does Not Exist begins and ends with a slow tracking shot of trees. Get a fucking move on was my thoughts. I suppose, I got the message in the end. Something poetical, slow moving.  But to me just more trees (with no swear words).

The plot is quite simple. A Tokyo entrepreneur identifies a fast-moving and new market. Glamping in the mountain village of Mizubiki. He sends a couple of agents to seal the deal with locals. The usual promises of investment and jobs are meant to wow them into submission and acceptance of the inevitable.

To their surprise the locals show more knowledge about water tanks and the positioning of sewerage systems and what was needed than those doing the talking. Shades of Erin Brockovich and the current debate about the environmental cost of the Rosebank Oil Field and the hundreds of billions of tons of CO2, which in essence means what’s pissed upstream comes downstream with jobbies attached.

Evil Does Not Exist does not wave the banner of David vs Goliath, but goes instead for the picture of a widowed handyman with an extraordinary knowledge of nature and his eight-year-old daughter living quietly with the mountains, fresh waters and those fucking dalek trees.  Drink it up?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CVBVVGD6