Like Ichi the Killer, Audition has been far preceded by its cult reputation for extreme, unsettling ultra-violence and appalled audience reactions consisting of walk-outs and faintings. Upon the film’s release in 1999, Takashi Miike had already received some recognition for his direct-to-video work in the first half of the decade and graduated to theatrical features, but this adaptation of a Ryu Murakami novel was his first claim to international fame and a significant departure from his campier yakuza flicks to a mature, uniquely terrifying film.
Audition can be seen as a starting point of maturation in his distinctive characteristic of genre-bending. Most of his earlier features deal with some combination of crime-action-black comedy, except for perhaps the sweet, serene road-trip drama The Bird People of China, but in Audition he brings the romance and horror genres together with a resounding and disconcerting crash.
The film revolves around widower Shigeharu Aoyama, an older man who has been living a dismal life ever since his wife died several years earlier. His movie-producer friend Yasuhisa Yoshikawa presents him with the clever ploy of staging a fake audition for a supposed acting role and interviewing each candidate until Aoyama narrows down the girls to someone he would like to date. Over the course of auditions, he takes special notice in Asami Yamazaki, a young, mousy former ballerina, whom he calls, takes out on dates and soon finds he begins to love.
It is a shame that Miike’s suckerpunch genre twist is not hidden well in the marketing of this film because there’s something uniquely resolute in the film’s first melodramatic, character-building hour when we really seem to want the relationship to work out. The script, on some level, takes advantage of our programmed expectations and hopes for movie romances that are often filled with characters making mistakes, begging for forgiveness and getting together at the end. The premise of the film itself is rooted in Aoyama (reluctantly) making a morally reprehensible mistake, starting a relationship on false terms, and taking advantage of the opposite sex for the sake of his own convenience. Almost automatically, a seasoned romance viewer can conjure up a scene depicting Aoyama’s inevitable admission of guilt and apology that would fit in somewhere between the second and third act.
Of course, Miike defies that and constantly teases with a lingering sense of unease that we desperately endeavor to ignore for our misguided belief in a smooth, movie romance. But finally, against our best intentions, the film skips the melodramatic third act and takes its massive turn into horror, intensifies it by showing the torture in gruesome, gory details, and (gasp!) justifies it in a perverse way by giving power to the victimized Asami.
The combination of the social and gender themes (intentional or not) with the cruel, visceral torture make for a one-of-a-kind experience of wrenching discomfort and shock. Both Ryo Ishibashi and Eihi Shiina give superb performances to make the final scenes all the more memorable.
This film is one of the reasons Japanese horror acquired such a creative reputation and it is Takashi Miike at his best.
Reviewed by Tarun
