For my second pick in our Halloween marathon, I’m going for something a little different. Audition, or Ôdishon as it was originally titled, is not your run of the mill horror movie. In fact, the first three quarters of the movie is a slow, continuously building, setup for an explosion at the end that you won’t soon forget. As evidence, I’ve been watching this movie for so long that I own it on VHS, and I still get the wiggins at the mention of the word ‘deeper’.
But we’re getting ahead of the cart there. One thing that I’ve always found interesting about the film is how wide open the starting premise is. In a nutshell, Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi) is a widower who has decided it’s time to get married again. As he lacks the social skills/confidence/youth to jump back into the dating game, his friend Yoshikawa (Jun Kunimura) comes up with a plan. They work in film/TV, so they’ll hold an audition for young women to play a part in their next project, and Aoyama can choose who he wants to date from those that audition.
Super-creepy! Right?
But think about that for a second. Imagine Vince Vaughan as the Aoyama character, and Ben Stiller as his friend. Then Jennifer Love Hewitt comes in to audition and we have the makings of a perfectly forgettable romantic-comedy as the hijinks ensue. But this is no fun-filled romantic comedy. This is a Takashi Miike film, and Asami (Eihi Shiina) will not leave you thinking about laughs or Jennifer Love Hewitt’s fantastic boobs. She’ll have you cringing back into your couch as you try to keep watching, and be haunting your thoughts for years to come. She’s that creepy.
Just how frightening Asami becomes is magnified by how we meet her. She is this beautiful, young, shy, and reserved woman. There is nothing threatening about her at all. And what really sells the creep-factor at the end is that we can still see that girl, but now it is in a whole different context. I’d be spoiling the best parts of the movie if I went into detail there. So I’ll just say that the last act of Audition is something everyone needs to see at some point.
It’s clear from jump-street that Aoyama is smitten, and it’s understandable why. That’s not to say there aren’t warning signs. Yoshikawa doesn’t like Asami, and the more he doesn’t learn about her, the less he trusts her. It seems that she has no social fingerprint to be found. Eventually, Aoyama begins to have questions as well. But by that point, it’s far too late.
There are a couple of schools of thought on everything leading up to ‘the big scene’. Over the years many have discussed it as a commentary on Japanese society and the place of women in it. If you want to go down that road, it is an interesting conversation. And there are certainly plenty of pegs that fit in the proper holes. For his part, Miike has denied that there is any social criticism in the movie. And for mine, I just absolutely love the way that the last act plays out.
It’s not classic horror. There’s no monster jumping out of the shadows. There’s a small woman, who is well-lit, who doesn’t need the element of surprise to terrify. She can do it with slow and deliberate actions. There is a trailer online if you want an idea of what’s in store. I’ve refrained from posting it here because it does spoil my favorite ‘gotcha’ moment of the film. You’ll want to see it for yourself if you choose to watch. As far as doing that, my shipping guy has assured me that Audition is available on Netflix streaming. Or, as always, you can click away at the little thumbnails below the post and buy it from Amazon.
Clacked by Brett Love 
on Oct 16, 2011 @ 09:00 EST5EDT
