Le mal n'existe pas

This surreal 2023 film by Hanaguchi, begins as a straight narrative begining with opening micro/macro shots of Japanese landscape. It focused on a young village situated by rivers which becomes a possible site for Toyko's tourist industry.

It follows rural villagers who are not right with the recent interest of their surroundings by outsiders. During a planning session between them and reps from the tourist company, they learned that a Toyko based firm wants to create a "glamping" vacation site for urban trotters.

Things begin to clash between reps and the locals. The representatives reach back to Tokyo office who assigns them to interact more with villagers, how to learn from them. A direct and humble interaction of Toyko reps and locals ensues.

The rest of the story, evolves a beautiful piece of surrealism. Playing with subtleties with useful shots of the natural landscape match with the notion of what is evil. It's the corporate greed, and it's reluctance to understand basic principles of life without business interest.

Obviously these topics are designed within a Japanese cultural context, the average movie viewers will probably miss the clues or references leading up to an very questionable climax - what just happened. Supposedly this was the subjective outcome desired by the film's director.

The film's director (Hanaguchi) had an open ended situation for viewers' interpretations. This film tackles alot of allegorical symbols, within the nature of the woods and the human behaviour.