It’s likely that few works of the past few years have attracted as much curiosity as Hamaguchi Ryusuke’s Gift. July 25, 2023 brought news of two surprise films by the Japanese director, who had kept mum about any further projects in the intervening two years since his mainstream breakthrough with Drive My Car (2021): Evil Does Not Exist, during the announcement of the Venice Film Festival competition, and immediately thereafter Gift, to premiere a month later at the Film Fest Gent in Belgium. The link between the two was already apparent, citing a different approach to the same footage and scenario in the latter’s announcement, but it took a while to fully ascertain that Gift was, in essence, the genesis of its predecessor: Ishibashi Eiko, the composer of the score for Drive My Car, commissioned Hamaguchi to create a 30-minute silent short to accompany a live performance. He felt that he needed to craft a complete scenario in order to create something that would provide sufficient support for her music; during filming he decided to make it completely, in large part due to his appreciation for his actors. Eventually, he made Gift, a 75-minute film that itself expanded upon Ishibashi’s request.

It’s unclear to me whether Gift or the 106-minute Evil Does Not Exist was actually completed first, and thus if the first premiered version was actually an elaboration upon an already preexisting iteration, or if the former was culled from the latter. I presume that the initially conceived 30-minute version was meant to be performed as part of a larger concert by Ishibashi, which may have provided further context not intended by Hamaguchi.

Gift emerges as, surprisingly, a fairly faithful retelling of Evil Does Not Exist. There were many people at the two screenings at Acropolis Cinema who had said that this was their first encounter with either project, which doesn’t strike me as illogical whatsoever. Both films could certainly stand on their own terms, both in a narrative and a purely experiential sense. While I still prefer Evil Does Not Exist for its greater use of Hamaguchi’s strengths, the experience of seeing Ishibashi’s performances was extraordinary.

This piece will focus more on some of the most notable commonalities between the performances—which, to my ear, were largely similar in tone to each other and the predecessor film, though the second performance used fewer of the familiar main themes of EDNE, and all the differences that I can readily recall between Gift and EDNE. It will be fragmentary by nature and revised if I recall further differences or need to correct them.

I must say here that though I did not take any notes, I attempted to recreate Gift from Evil Does Not Exist for my own personal recollection purposes. I feel I was largely successful, but I was only able to locate 54 minutes of footage; it is also not out of the question that reviewing the visual elements of EDNE may have contaminated my memory.

One of Gift‘s most notable qualities—assuming this was not due to the screening conditions—is the generally harsher image; to my untrained eye, it almost looks like non-color corrected log footage, which did not detract from the experience at all. Certain shots, as I’ll get into, are new and thus may have been taken from test shooting, but even the copious amounts of reused images seem to be slightly lower in quality, which suits the slightly less ambiguous and harsher tone of the experience.

Gift also relies much more heavily on on-screen text than might be expected. This, more than anything, conveys the story of Evil Does Not Exist, with additional embellishments. The first one introduces Hana when she first appears on screen, with seven others to come for Takumi, Kazuo, Sachi, Takahashi, Mayuzumi, Suruga, and Tatsuki in order; hers is the only one to be presented over a black screen. Hana and Takumi’s present more information than the others but are still notably terse; the former’s states (on separate lines) “Hana Yasumura, age 8. Lives in Mizubiki, Nagano. Lives with her father. Has no mother.”

The on-screen text also spell out more information about the village, noting its population of over 5,000, calling it small but well-developed, and mentioning the proximity to Tokyo and most villagers’ status as migrants or descendants of migrants from bigger cities. They also sometimes discuss the events to come in a certain scene, such as with the town meeting scene and with the representatives’ second meeting with Takumi. Aside from the relating of the latter, which is presented in black text (perhaps to accommodate the daytime background), all of these use plain white text. This text lends a certain bluntness, even confrontation, to Gift; perhaps it and EDNE are about as ambiguous as another, but the clarity of these intertitles feels greater than the dialogue.

Dialogue is also commonly relayed via this on-screen text, which is mostly overlaid on the image, occasionally placed on a black screen, though these latter instances don’t necessarily appear to be for emphasis; sometimes they seem to accommodate for when a particular shot wasn’t long enough to fit the time to read the line. There are a few moments where text is moved from the center of the screen over Japanese text to quickly translate for the English audience; I recall one on the brochure saying it is “A briefing on the glamping project” or something similar, and another on the diagram reading “Septic tank.”

It must be emphasized here that Gift is more than anything a silent film. It’s certainly possible that someone more acquainted with Ishibashi’s work may see a given performance of this as a concert with a visual accompaniment rather than the other way around, and indeed during my second viewing I spent more time watching Ishibashi instead of the image. But generally I feel that the greatness of her performance comes from the way she seeks to accentuate the emotional and narrative undertow of the images that are presented, in a manner more akin to the live scores of films made pre-1927 than anything else.

Gift, then, presents something of a fascinating quandary, as a silent film that doesn’t necessarily seem to have been filmed with a pre-1927 film grammar. Again, this may come across differently for someone not already familiar with Hamaguchi’s profound belief in the written word, even in a context removed from overt performance. But his actors are by and large underplayers, tremendously subtle even before one of their primary modes of expression is removed. They are not directed to emote, and presenting both these quiet performances and all the beautiful footage of nature (and these people moving within them) brings the film much closer to the hypnotic than many a silent film.

It’s definitely worth noting that Takumi operates as the sole main protagonist here, as almost all of the scenes in Tokyo and the extended car conversation between the representatives are excised. Takahashi still expresses the desire to move to the village, but spending less time with the talent agency representatives and roughly the same amount with Takumi makes him feel that much more prominent, with no significant shift in perspective taking place here.

The only “analog” instrument that Ishibashi played was a flute, which was mainly used for low tones that then appeared to be sampled and looped, which blended into the soundscape of more electronically summoned sounds. Among other things, she had a miniature keyboard, a soundboard of some kind, and a laptop which she seemed to use to cue up particular excerpts from the score.

SPOILERS FOR GIFT *AND* EVIL DOES NOT EXIST FOLLOW:

There are certain sequences where Ishibashi performed the same musical gesture. During one scene from unused footage where Hana is walking in a field, suddenly turning her head and running off, she triggered the gunshot noises heard elsewhere in the film. In yet another moment, the representatives’ boss flings a sheaf of paper into the air, which is accompanied by something akin to metallic drum sting. During much of the town hall meeting, a rapid percussive drum set recording is played which tremendously heightens the intensity of the scene, reminding me of a similar scoring of a rehearsal montage in Drive My Car. During the shot where villagers are searching for Hana in the forest, Ishibashi sang wordlessly into the microphone, much more electronically treated than the flute.

What follows is an attempt to discuss every single scene in Gift that I can recall. It will mostly be in chronological order, following along with my attempted reconstruction, and discusses each scene in its own individual paragraph. By necessity, it may be brief, inelegantly written, and/or repetitive in spots. I would not ordinarily do this, but given the unlikelihood of this ever getting a home media release, I hope this serves as a decent enough substitute.

The film begins with a single title card reading “GIFT” followed by black screen and a cut to the shot of the dead deer that Hana and Takumi encounter in the woods, which is accompanied by the sound of Takumi’s buzzsaw, one of the only sound effects that Ishibashi used in her live scores. It then cuts to unused footage of Hana in tight close-up looking down into the camera, is interrupted by the intertitle, then sees her leaving.

Takumi’s first scene plays out mostly the same, though I seem to recall the first tracking shot begins slightly later in. The text introducing Takumi is placed over the shot of his face as he uses the chainsaw. The scene and shot continues after Takumi has a smoke after wheeling the wood over to his house, panning back to the stump and axe where he prepares to swing. It then cuts on his action to a shot of him chopping a piece of wood in front of the representatives from much later in the film.

A few unused extreme long shots of Takumi driving through a grassier part of the village plays under a few intertitles explaining the village as stated above; I believe the single shot of Takumi driving on his way to the stream in EDNE is also used but I’m not sure.

The scene of Takumi and eventually Kazuo gathering water plays out the same for much of the scene, featuring the first use of on-screen text for dialogue purposes. A brief conversation about the distant gunshots is also shown. During the second trip, a brief unused handheld shot shows Kazuo as he walks, and I believe his introductory text is used here. Then, footage of Sachi cooking udon is shown much earlier than in the film, along with her introductory text. Effectively, people are introduced through the first half of Gift in couples formed by familial or collegial bounds, which goes some way in reorienting the film earlier on.

I believe the film then cuts to a shot of deer tracks that Hana encounters during the town hall meeting, followed by a greenhouse full of manure that she finds during her final sequence before her disappearance (placed between Takahashi chopping wood and the restaurant). The film then cuts to the moment where Takumi and Kazuo discover the wasabi leaves starting with the point-of-view shot. The shot of them actually eating the leaves may be an alternate take, as Kazuo touches his nose from the heat at one point which doesn’t appear to be in EDNE.

There is a fairly rapid series of images that register as premonitions: the deer bite marks on the small maple tree that Takumi and Hana discover, the feather that Takumi picks up, and Takumi wiping the blood from Hana’s nose at the end of the film. There are at least two uses of the shot where Hana looks up into the trees; I cannot recall clearly where they are, so I have placed the first here, which feels accurate enough.

At some point around here, Takahashi and Mayuzumi are introduced much earlier than in EDNE, the biggest structural change in Gift. It begins with the aforementioned shot of their boss hurling paper into the air, which is an alternate, more plainly presented shot of that action, which is only shown in EDNE on the camera of the Playmode Google Meet. The film then (if I’m not missing a shot) shows one shot each of first Takahashi and Mayuzumi with accompanying introductory text, making note of their profession and their status as former actor and caregiver, respectively. Notably, this makes it seem as if this footage is of their first journey to the village, not the second as shown in dialogue from EDNE. One shot shows both of them from behind in the car, followed by I think one long shot of their car with on-screen text that mentions Suruga’s invitation, followed by an unused sequence of three shots where they walk in a field, with Takahashi turning around to film Mayuzumi, who shows a peace sign.

If this sequence doesn’t take place before the previously discussed one, the foreboding tracking shot of trees from the very beginning happens here, though I think it’s possibly taken from a shot immediately before Takumi is looking for Hana, which is similar but slightly shorter. (Note here that the scenes at the elementary school are completely excised in Gift.) This shot is interrupted by an intertitle talking about how Hana essentially punishes Takumi for his typical tardiness in picking her up by running into the woods, and that they both enjoy the game which brings them closer together. The magnificent extended shot of Takumi walking alone, the camera passing behind a little hill, and then Takumi appearing carrying Hana on his back happens here. Takumi then points out the deer bite marks from before to Hana. They are then seen walking in an area with tall yellow grass from slightly later in the EDNE sequence, with Hana flinging snow and Takumi pointing out the watering hole before discovering the feather.

Sachi cooking udon is shown at least twice before the actual restaurant scene; I’ve placed the second instance here, and for some reason there is a brief cut to black in the middle. There is a linkage between I think her restaurant’s chimney (unseen in EDNE) and Takumi’s house’s chimney from a later scene of him drawing, which perhaps serves here as the introduction to the small pre-meeting at Takumi’s house. This plays out as a truncated version, with brief on-screen text introducing Suruga and Tatsuki. The text pays special attention to the feather and Suruga’s son’s interest in the harpsichord.

The shot of the cars pulling out from Takumi’s house is immediately followed by cars pulling into the town hall at daytime. A shot extended from the EDNE version of children playing in front of the town hall is shown under the on-screen text talking about the meeting going poorly, followed by an intertitle highlighting the septic tank as the villagers’ main concern. Hana is initially with the children as Yoshiko hurries in. In an unused shot, she is seen entering and sitting down as the representatives enter the room. There is some configuration of shots where Hana is seen as the door opens and/or closes, and of Hana leaving. I believe some exploring, including the shot of her discovering the black feather, is here, followed by the unused shots of her hearing the gunshots, then running off in a wider shot, but I’m not certain; I think the field she is running in during these unused shots is the same field that the representatives were seen walking in earlier.

Any mention or hint of the hilarious glamping video is elided, and the first footage of the meeting after the scenes with Hana is of Kazuo speaking. Hana is then seen feeding the cows as she does before the shot of the manure much later on, as on-screen text specifically mentions Takumi’s reservations, along with his request for a Playmode representative to speak with the village.

Here, the lack of dialogue and the propulsion of the live score make it especially difficult to track the changes aside from general curtailment, but the order of speakers seems to be the same. Sachi does not mention her restaurant in on-screen text, but is applauded like Suruga. Mayuzumi notably does not speak until in response to Takumi when he speaks while standing. Someone seems to commend Suruga after he speaks (including the lines about water flowing downstream) and exhorts the representatives to explain properly, but the intertitle is disembodied.

There’s one unused wide shot of Takumi smoking while driving the representatives well before their second trip, which I’m placing here despite great uncertainty. Takumi is then shown in what may be an alternate take of him drawing the representatives that (I think) is not interrupted by Hana’s stuffed animal, followed by a shot of him drawing alone.

I think Hana’s dream takes place here rather than the night before the meeting as in EDNE. She is not shown sleeping, and it is much more tantalizingly described as “a dream of beauty,” where Hana dreams herself as first a bird, then “a deer, wind, her father, and herself.” I don’t remember the precise sequence of shots, but I believe it begins with a bird (the second shot of the EDNE dream sequence), then a truncated version of the second shot of Takumi carrying Hana on his back in the forest, then Takumi holding the feather and the scene of Hana looking at deer (cut before they move to leave the shot) from her dream in EDNE. I believe the sequence contains the second instance of Hana looking up at the trees, an unused shot that tilts up on a gorgeous, mostly bare green tree, and concludes with the first shot in the EDNE dream sequence, a shot of the watering hole that fades to black. [EDIT: film critic Jake Mulligan pointed out to me that the rest of Gift could be construed as a dream in a manner that EDNE could not, given that Hana is never specified as having woken up.]

The Playmode meeting is shown in a single still frame which shows the client in the background on the Google Meet with the boss and representatives at the table in the foreground, the former looking sullenly away, with on-screen text describing the boss refusing to go to the village. An unused shot from the car’s point-of-view driving on village roads plays under text describing the representatives wanting Takumi to be their caretaker and him refusing, followed by a truncated shot of them arriving at his house while the text describes Takahashi’s interest in staying longer in the village growing as he spends more time with Takumi. The attempted gift of alcohol is not shown, and Takumi chops wood followed by Takahashi’s attempts. Takumi’s advice on technique is not shown before Takahashi’s successful chop, with the only on-screen dialogue in the scene being the hilariously blunt “Let’s go to lunch.”

The udon restaurant scene takes place here (with the conclusion of Sachi’s cooking), eliding Takahashi’s caretaker request and only talking about the potential glamping site being in the deers’ path. The scene ends right as the bowls are taken away, before Takahashi and Kazuo’s exchange.

The scene of Takumi and the representatives gathering water plays out up until Takahashi takes the water jug from the struggling Mayuzumi and informs her (in on-screen text) of his intention to stay. It then cuts to them placing the jugs in the car with on-screen text dialogue of Mayuzumi also saying she plans to stay. There is a brief moment of black, then Takahashi lighting his cigarette alongside Takumi; the rest of the scene as they hear gunshots (not mentioned onscreen this time) and drive off plays out uninterrupted.

I think the scene of Takumi and the representatives talking about whether deers will attack humans happens here, ending after Takahashi says that the deer will go somewhere else and before Takumi begins smoking.

I’ve placed the scene of Hana walking away from the camera into the woods (which takes place after the shot of her looking up into the trees in EDNE) here, though it may come before the previous scene or elsewhere.

Here, Takumi and representatives are walking into the woods; the shot is interrupted by the view of the dead deer that opens this sequence in EDNE, integrating it as the shot to the reverse shot of Mayuzumi looking at it as she walks by. I think the entire rest of the sequence plays out like in EDNE through the shot of Mayuzumi’s cut hand.

I believe there’s a match cut to that hand being bound by Takumi, before he and then Takahashi rush out. Mayuzumi then I think goes outside (definitely without looking at the family photograph) for the long shot of the fog enveloping the house and forest.

There are then unused shots of the public address speaker, one close dissolving into a farther shot, which is when Ishibashi triggered the PA broadcast announcement, which is partially translated onscreen over the shots taken from EDNE of villagers searching for Hana. It is only made clear here in Gift that she is missing, as the on-screen text does not mention that Takumi was taking the representatives along with him to belatedly pick her up from school.

I believe that after the last unchanged shot (of Kazuo and Sachi parking on the road and going into the woods) is the shots of Suruga in his house, which are flipped to show the long shot of his house first before the closer view of him through his window, followed by the last shot of Mayuzumi silhouetted before she goes back into the house. If I’m not mistaken, the second shot of the villagers searching in the woods is removed.

The discovery of Hana facing the deer initially plays out the same from the tracking shot of Takumi and Takahashi walking through the woods through the second reverse angle on Hana. The image of the wound on the deer immediately following that in EDNE, however, is moved until after I think the second shot of Takumi choking Takahashi (i.e. the first handheld close-up). The sequence then plays out the same (perhaps with a truncation of the second wide shot but I’m not sure) until maybe the most narratively significant change: the shot of Takumi carrying Hana into the forest in the background cuts before Takahashi staggers into frame, perhaps suggesting a less ambiguous fate or simply an unconscious state.

Perhaps the most startling moment happens here: the film cuts to the shot of Hana looking at the deer in her dream. She appears to have her hand in a thumbs up gesture before moving it to shield her eyes from the sun, which she does in reverse order in that shot; whether this was an unused extension or even reversed footage is unclear. Gift then cuts to an unused tight close-up on Takumi with a slight smile on his face, apparently in the same sunny place as Hana was in her dream. It’s possible that this footage was even taken from the origins of Omika Hitoshi as the lead of Evil Does Not Exist and Gift, where he was originally driving Hamaguchi around during location scouting and thus serving as a stand-in for reference; Hamaguchi found his visage striking in juxtaposition to nature and decided to cast him.

There are then two shots of a rapidly flowing stream amid the snow at night, which are taken from a sequence of shots following Takumi drawing and his chimney at around the film’s midpoint. Gift then concludes with the same final shot as Evil Does Not Exist, of the moon surrounded by pitch-black trees, albeit without the heavy breathing. Unlike the individual page credits of EDNE, the credits here begin rolling while the shot is going on (I regrettably do not recall exactly when the screen becomes completely black), are presented entirely in English, and even mention certain cast and crew members who were only in EDNE (including the school teacher, the PA announcer, the sound people, and the musicians on the score, even though the work of some of those people is presented in the live performance.) Gift is not mentioned by name in these credits but certain aspects are, including the credits scroll design and Ishibashi’s tour manager. There is a solo credit that scrolls up to the center reading “Created for the music performance of Eiko Ishibashi.” There is a final copyright credit for NEOPA/fictive 2023, put on the bottom right instead of the bottom left for EDNE.

Ishibashi kept playing through the (fairly quick) credits, holding her notes until that last credit faded; both screenings were among the most magical experiences I’ve had in a theater.