AUDITION

1999/ Director: Takashi Miike/ Writer: Takashi Miike

Cast: Ryo Ishibashi, Eihi Shiina, Tetsu Sawaki, Miyuki Matsuda, Renji Ishibashi, Jun Junimura

I saw this a couple times in Seattle, once at the small Grande Illusions alone and once with my movie mate Matt and he just loved it. I can’t believe I had a copy of this movie here and turned it back to the shop because the subtitles did not work in English. Later I would realize that I simply did not know how to use the Chinese remote and that the subtitles most likely did work fine. I have some of Miike’s other films on DVD here like Visitor Q and Gozu and Ichi the Killer and some other Yakuza style adventure films that appear to be a long series, but I have not found a new copy of Audition. Damn me! Damn me to hell! Needless to say it is one great movie, a real stunner. It’s the kind of movie that if you were a girl and your boyfriend sat around watching it over and over you may want to question the direction the relationship is headed. It is hard for me to give a thorough review being as I have not seen the film in years. I prefer to critique a film within a day or so of the viewing, or a week at the most, while the images are still fresh and vivid. Suffice to say a fan of shock cinema will not be disappointed at all. But shock cinema (and Miike is a shock film maker, there is no doubt) is a little misleading here in this case as the movie is a finely crafted and well acted and, in my humble opinion, the best of Miike’s work that I have seen so far.

The basic story is about a film maker who is still grieving over his recently departed wife and decides to act on the advice of a friend to stage an audition for a film and in the process possibly meet a nice girl. There is a long series of auditions that transpire and most are rather comical. He does eventually fall for super lovely and waifish Ryo Ishibashi. Unfortunately she is a totally psychotic kook who interprets his later game of “aloofness” as the acts of a man who uses auditions to seduce innocent girls and she exacts her unique and gruesome revenge on the guy, who is really simply a nice guy trying to find a wife. He was actually reluctantly following the advice of his friend to play it cool in order to attract her even more. This brutal revenge stuff is apparently not new to the girl considering she keeps some mutilated, though very much alive, previous victim in a duffle bag in her place.

I do not want to tell you anymore, except that it may sound like a typical stalker, psycho obsessed girl flick in the vain of Play Misty for Me or Fatal Attraction, and it is all that, but it is quite different as well. It has a fatalistic and dark mood to it and it is unrelenting in the violence department though not gratuitous. It is the slasher girl getting even, and it is scarier just because she is so frail and demure on the one hand, but viscously calculating and without remorse on the other. Add to that the fact the male figure is basically innocent of the crimes she perceives him to be guilty of! The acting and film-work are both marvelous. The violence is grueling and unnerving and there are strange, disturbing flash back sequences. Not a movie for everyone but I am still looking for a new copy. Horror/suspense films just doesn’t get much better than this!

Note: I finally picked up a working copy of Audition here in Kunming China and find my above review is suitable for the moment, though I feel the need to write something on the film again shortly. I’ve watched it twice, once alone and once with my wife and have a fresh perspective since the previous section of this essay was written. I I will update my opinion  on what I consider to be his masterpiece.

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This entry was posted on Monday, July 21st, 2008 at 9:38 pm and is filed under Japanese and Asian Cinema . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.