Eddington, despite anything I enjoy about it, has a major pacing problem. Aster has so many unjustifiable—and thus unnecessary—long takes that fill the room with dead air.
Typically this is done to be contemplative, heighten kinetic movement, build atmosphere, build tension or suspense, or to strictly observe. I see him going for all of the above but none of it ever coalesces, especially the latter. There's not much to observe, really, so it's just a lethargic watch; it's not thrilling enough to be a thriller nor funny enough to be a comedy so all we're left with is an experience that feels inert.
By contrast, Evil Does Not Exist's long takes are goddamn exquisite. This is observational cinema at its most chemically pure. The use of routines—and interruptions of said routines—make for a deceptively serene watch. The pace couldn't be more disciplined and engaging, sometimes hypnotic, like watching a shimmering glacier melt. What makes for a borderline ASMR movie is broken up by its tonal shifts which are not unlike its own form of climate change. There's a point where the natural 'melting' accelerates and cracks appear, giving way to large chunks falling off of the glistening frost, disrupting the equilibrium.
Eiko Ishibashi's score is so peculiar while also one of the prettiest albums I've heard this decade. Hamaguchi actually enlisted Ishibashi to compose the score first as he planned to shoot his movie after the fact, based on how the score sounded. Her strings over shots of snow, frozen lakes, fallen feathers, a canopy of treetops and headlights in a dark cabin give the overall experience magnificent synergy.
Shot almost entirely with a large depth of frame so the actors are absorbed by the forest around them, arguably because the forest itself is the main character. But, as the narrative slowly closes in with the patience of a venus fly-trap, there's constant discomfort. It feels like an anti-thriller negating any conventional sense of character allegiance or structural frameworks (no chase scenes, no suspense sequences of any kind). There's a sensationally tense town hall meeting where the heat is finally at a boiling point but it's not long before it comes back down to a simmer. From there we're challenged at every turn to have a nuanced view of everything we thought we felt or will feel.
A long driving scene (honestly, it feels like it was shot in real-time [complimentary]) allows us to see two seemingly unlikable characters in a different light and thus we have a better view of their shades. This is the exact kind of sequence that a lesser movie would otherwise not give much thought but is absolutely vital. The closest the movie ever gets to showing us any real villains is a scene orbiting the driving sequence but it lasts probably.....4 minutes before they leave the narrative entirely. Nothing of consequence happens to them because, realistically, nothing would.
So when the extremely polarizing ending collapses the ground from under your feet, all you can do is try to desperately search for a why. Or WHYs, plural. It still has me revisiting the movie weekly, turning it over, checking for new insights. It's a confident choice, one that, even if I hated, I'd still admire for how ballsy it is (and it deserves credit for being set up multiple times throughout: it doesn't come out of nowhere). But I love it beyond that because there's so much to get out of it.
Everything flows downhill.
