Film: Audition
Release date: 28th June 2004
Certificate: 18
Running time: 111 mins
Director: Takashi Miike
Starring: Ryo Ishibashi, Eihi Shiina, Tetsu Sawaki, Jun Kunimura, Renji Ishibashi
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Studio: Tartan
Format: DVD
Country: South Korea/Japan
It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly eleven years since Takashi Miike’s disturbing tour de force tore its way through the festival circuit and onto our screens. Yet more than a decade after its release, the director’s most infamous feature still holds the power to shake you to your very core.
Audition is based on Ryū Murakami’s cult novel of the same name, and focuses on widower Aoyama (Ishibashi) and his search for a new partner. Aoyama is urged by his son to begin dating again many years after the death of his wife, but fears starting the dating process again. Enter Aoyama’s video director friend Yoshikawa, who offers up the unethical idea of holding a fake movie audition in order for Aoyama to peruse many women at the same time.
Almost from the outset, Aoyama becomes smitten with 24-year-old former ballerina Asami Yamazaki (Shiina), and, after the audition, he finds the courage to ask her out on a date. The pair begin a romantic relationship, despite warnings about Asami from Yoshikawa, and Aoyama asks Asami to go away with him on a romantic weekend trip. Things are going well, until Asami disappears without a trace. This leads Aoyama on a nightmarish journey into a twisted underworld of abuse, torture and tragedy. Asami is not what she seems, and this culminates in the film’s final iconic scene…
With a back catalogue of over eighty films and television series’, it often feels like a lucky dip when picking out a Takashi Miike feature. Strike lucky, and you will receive a true cinematic gem, crafted with an unrivalled flare, constantly challenging the viewer in new ways, but on the other end of the spectrum, you find the mark of a director for hire, with some dire by-the-numbers titles padding out the ranks. Fortunately, Audition is the flag bearer for the former, the director’s calling card internationally, and constructed with a Hitchcockian approach that leads the viewer by the nose until the final shocking conclusion.
The film is a masterful deconstruction of the romantic comedy genre. We recognise the stock characters, the lonely lead who wants to be loved, the vulnerable girl whose personality needs to be coaxed out by romance, the woman who is hopelessly in love with the lead character much to his chagrin, and the best friend who acts as the enabler for the film’s plot. The archetypes are complimented by light-hearted music, snappy editing, a sharp script and rather slow pace at first. This all changes with the second half of the film, however, which takes great delight in taking the viewer on a surreal and ultimately horrific outing into the world of one very disturbed woman. That’s all we are saying about that as the second half of the film should really be left for the viewer to discover for themselves.
Audition is greatly aided by two fantastic performances from its leads, Ishibashi plays his role with warmth and compassion that completely draws you in as his quest becomes an increasingly bizarre scenario. It is this performance that holds the juxtaposition of styles in the film’s two halves together. Miike has designed the jolt in style in order to provoke a reaction but Ishibashi’s performance allows the film as a whole to flow together without turning the viewer off. Eihi Shiina gives the performance of a lifetime, too, and almost certainly without her Audition would never have obtained the reputation that it still holds today. Shiina is flawless as the innocently psychotic Asami striking fear into the hearts of many, evoking a feeling of abject horror that is not for those without a strong stomach.
Miike juxtaposes two different styles together in order to create a plane crash sized jolt to the viewer, but the film is more than just a mesh of two styles thrown together to shock and disgust. The film feels akin to a nightmare. Everything is fine, as in a regular dream, but then suddenly something happens, and you descend more and more into a horrific world that is out of your control. The film’s bouncing between orange tone and blue hue combined with the more surreal aspects of the film - dream sequences and hallucinations - only add to this sense of nightmarish helplessness that cannot be prevented.
Audition will always sit atop the pile of Takashi Miike’s films as his most lovingly detailed and nuanced film, despite many other outstanding contributions, such as Dead Or Alive and The Happiness Of The Katakuris, amusing given the film’s short production time, and being just one of a handful of films Miike was developing at the same time.
Audition is a must see for any fan of Japanese extreme/horror cinema. It has earned its reputation, and next to Oldboy should be considered the cornerstone of modern East-Asian extreme cinema. CSA
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