This might be the most explosive tennis movie ever made

There’s hardly room for a supporting cast in this menage-à-trois, conducted on and off the court. Faist and O’Connor inhabit their roles in the most persuasive manner, Art bottling up his feelings, Paul grinning and joking his way through a problem. Zendaya has no difficulty playing the boys’ mutual love objet. She is as sexy and sultry as any screen heroine you’ll see this year, although so thin it’s hard to imagine her taking a set off Serena Williams.

The contest is conducted on the court and in the minds of the three players, with Tashi being by far the most psychologically complex. What does she want? An impossible blend of calculation and instinct, she probably couldn’t say.

To make matters even more frenetic, Guadagnino has conjured up the ghost of Giorgio Moroder (84 this week and still recording!), with a throbbing, electronic score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross from Nine Inch Nails that ambushes the characters in scene after scene. I kept expecting Donna Summer to appear at any moment.

As an Italian director working in Hollywood, Guadagnino seems immune to the American vice of making every movie a commentary on the nation’s political madness. There are no underlying morals or messages in Challengers; it’s three sets and a tiebreak of pure entertainment. An incredibly innovative movie in terms of both camerawork and sound, with a script that never loses its way, it’s a rare work of art that feels just like sport.

Evil Does Not Exist

I’m not sure I’d recommend a double header, following the breathless action of Challengers with the slow, silent build-up of Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist. It’d be even weirder than pairing Barbie and Oppenheimer. Ever since the success of Drive My Car (2021), the Japanese director has been a favourite on the film festival circuit. Among other silverware, this new film has taken out the Grand Jury Prize at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards, Best Film at the London Film Festival, and no fewer than five awards in Venice, including the Grand Jury Prize.

It’s odd that in an era of diminishing attention spans, a Japanese director who regularly tests the patience of his audience is one of the cinema’s rising stars. Yet for everyone who loves Hamaguchi’s movies, there are plenty who find them too slow and introverted.

Evil Does Not Exist will continue to divide audiences. The film began as a kind of tone poem in collaboration with composer Eiko Ishibashi, who supplied the layered, atmospheric score. Hamaguchi has matched the music with shots of sunlight filtered through tree branches. It takes a long time to emerge from this meditation as we watch Takumi (Hitoshi Omika), wandering around the forest in his mountain village. He chops wood, collects water from a stream in plastic containers, and goes to pick up his eight-year-old daughter, Hana (Ryo Nishikawa), from school. Takumi is a widower and a jack of all trades with an intimate knowledge of the forest.

Halfway through the story, Takumi and his fellow villagers attend a meeting with two company agents from Tokyo. They have come to answer questions about a new glamping enterprise they hope to establish. Those operatives, Takahashi (Ryuji Kosaka) and Mayuzumi (Ayaka Shibutani), are completely unprepared for the issues the villagers raise. It seems the camp’s septic tank will pollute the local water sources; there is not enough staff allocated to look after the site; there’s a danger from fires; the camp is in the midst of a deer trail … The two agents are overwhelmed and come across as professionally insincere.

At this point, we understand why we spent so long watching Takumi collecting water from the stream. In the context of this story, the stream is important, as the proposed camp threatens to upset the fragile balance between nature and human occupation. For the most part, the meeting is conducted politely, but it generates real dramatic tension. We can feel the wheels of corporate profit-seeking poised to crush the environment Takumi and others call home.

Anybody who has ever fought against some proposed development that will trash the neighbourhood while enriching a small cartel of greedy businessmen will recognise this scenario. It’s a universal problem, as relevant to the Sydney suburbs as it is to the mountains of Japan.

Next, we are in a room in Tokyo with Takahashi and Mayuzumi, as they listen to a depressing assessment from their boss that the villagers need to be appeased while sticking to the original plan. After all, what’s the problem with a little pollution?

On the way back to the village, Takahashi fantasises about changing his life and moving to the country. He is disturbed by the role he is being forced to play, which goes against his instincts. This may seem a surprising turnaround, but it’s the kind of surprise one often encounters in Hamaguchi’s films. The two agents spend the afternoon with Takumi, but the visit takes an unexpected turn, leading to an ending that has generated endless discussion. I’m not about to elaborate on what takes place.

As the credits roll, I realised that this film, which begins in such a staid manner, will stay lodged in my mind for a very long time. The low-key nature of the first scenes makes the later scenes even more disturbing. It’s like a screw that is slowly tightened while we feel nothing is happening. The title remains an enigma, but this is because there are too many possible explanations. Even if “evil” doesn’t exist, there’s a tremendous power in nature and in human destiny, that defies understanding.