by A.J.
Night 7: Japanese Horror Night
“Words create lies. Pain can be trusted.”
The 1999 Japanese horror movie Audition first made its way into the consciousness of American audiences by appearing on “best horror movies you’ve never seen” or “best underrated horror movies" lists. I first learned about it from watching Bravo’s 100 Scariest Movie Moments where it ranked #11, between Misery and Wait Until Dark. Not a bad place to be. The “scary moment” that earns Audition its place on such lists and its cult status is the extended and unforgettable torture scene at the climax. However, there is more to Audition than just that torture scene. It is many, many steps above “torture porn” movies like the SAW movies. Audition is a masterpiece of modern horror.
At the suggestion of friends, and even his teenage son, widower Shigeharu Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi) reluctantly agrees to find a new wife. He’s not sure how to go about dating again, so his movie producer friend, Yoshikawa (Jun Kunimura), suggests holding an audition. Yoshikawa asks Aoyama what he wants in a wife and quickly throws together a script and sets up a casting call for a movie that may, or may not, get made. Aoyama is hesitant to go along with this highly unethical scheme, but that changes when he sees the resume of Asami Yamazaki (Eihi Shiina). He is moved by her story of having to give up her dream of being a ballerina after an accident. Her shyness and sadness mesmerize Aoyama and before the auditions even start he has decided on her. They go on a date and it goes well. Then she disappears and the film turns into a mystery as Aoyama searches for her and learns dark secrets about her past. Asami returns and then you may have to look away from the screen.
The very premise of holding a fake movie audition for a man to meet a potential wife is deceptive and unethical at best. It is also the kind of thing that often happens in mainstream romantic comedies that later in the plot is revealed, causes conflict, and then is excused or forgiven—if it is not just flat out overlooked. For a long stretch, Audition feels like part romantic comedy and part drama about a shy man finding love again almost to the point of parody. Nothing especially out of the ordinary or suspicious happens for the first 40 minutes.
To say that the film takes a hard turn would be putting it mildly. Yet director Takeshi Miike crafts the film in such a way that there are no jarring shifts in tone. Everything feels believable even as it slides from one genre to the next so that when the horror does come it is all the more frightening for how believable it is.
The screenplay provides characters with layers and substance so that no one aside from Aoyama’s son and his girlfriend, a rather wholesome couple, are only what they seem—though the son and his girlfriend come across as one dimensional by comparison. Aoyama is a mild mannered, decent man…who agrees to a deception to date a younger woman. Asami is everything that a stereotypical good and proper Japanese wife should be, but she is also an incredibly sadistic psycho-killer. Even the sleazy movie producer Yoshikawa has a reasonable, redeeming side. He advises Aoyama to stop seeing Asami because none of her references checked out and her agent has been missing for a year.
Audition is so memorable and effective because of the low-key, slow and steady approach to the material by Takeshi Miike—it’s easy to see another director, especially a Hollywood director, playing up the blood and guts—and the excellent performance of Eihi Shiina as Asami. She believably plays the demure, shy girl recovering from an abusive past and the sadistic killer who believes they are fully justified in their actions. Aoyama’s key mistake was looking for a girl who could play a good and proper wife instead of looking for a girl who really was those things. Asami, it turns out, is a great actress, thanks to Eihi Shiina’s great performance.
For that infamous torture scene which involves acupuncture needles and piano wire, Miike actually shows us relatively little, mostly keeping the camera on Asami’s face. Her expression and the sound effect of a thud on the floor provide more shock and squirm inducing horror than any gore Miike, a master of graphic violence and gore in films like Ichi the Killer, could have shown us. He makes the right decision for this film. I will say that Audition does have a “happy” ending, relatively speaking. It is not a dour slog and the torture itself is not the point of the movie.
This is a difficult movie to watch and that finale with its violence and surreal elements meant to capture Aoyama’s overwhelmed state of mind can be an overload for some, perhaps many. However, if you’re looking for a movie that will actually provide interesting characters, not just fodder for a killer, and actually make you grab the person you’re with or squeeze the sofa cushions, and maybe even avert your eyes, then Audition should be at the top of your Shocktober watchlist.
Audition is currently streaming on Tubi.
No comments:
Post a Comment