MasterChugs Theater: 'Audition'
We all love a good old-fashioned traditional romance tale, don’t we? You know the kind of thing I mean … boy meets girl, boy dates girl, boy discovers girl’s shady secrets, girl turns into psychotic S & M torturer … sniff. It brings tears to your eyes, doesn’t it?
Well, the last half-hour of Audition will certainly bring tears to your eyes. My mom always said you should watch out for the quiet ones. Welcome to what is perhaps the least extreme of Takashi Miike’s films and the one that truly cemented his reputation outside Japan as being one of the most extreme directors in the world, Audition; a film with such a horrifying final half-hour that it holds the dubious honor of having had the most audience walk-outs of all time during its premiere.
Widowed for several years, Shigeharu Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi) has raised his son with dignity but without real joy in a large house where silence echoes a painful absence. Envisioning himself remarried without really knowing how to go about it, the shy 40-something announces his project to his friend Yoshikawa (Jun Kunimura), a film producer who proposes putting on a false audition in order to find him a wife. Reading through resumes, Shigeharu discovers a very personal letter from an actress with whose pain he immediately identifies. He becomes infatuated with the young woman and decides to pursue her after the audition. Shigeharu and Asami (Eihi Shiina) become lovers until the day she disappears without a trace. Shigeharu then sets out to find her and slowly plunges into a nightmare that's all too real.
Based on a novel by Ryu Murakami, author of "Tokyo Decadence," and on a scenario by Daisuke Tengan, the son of Shohei Imamura, the movie affirms the unique vision of director Takashi Miike, beyond the yakuza films like Dead or Alive that made his reputation. Audition is above all a work of extreme precision that owes its success to the orchestra conductor's talent who meticulously directs this symphony of horror. Starting in a hospital room at the bedside of Shigeharu's wife, the film has an air of bittersweet drama before transforming into a romantic comedy during the audition scene. As the audience has acquired a sincere affection for the main character, viewers believe themselves to be embarked on a light comedy in the vein of Shall We Dance? The change of tone at the time of the audition as well as the film's title establish this scene as a pivotal to the plot, and so the audience expects unforseen consequences. The film then follows the game of cat and mouse between the two lovers while some strange scenes furtively appear, heralding what's to come. The transition is made smoothly until we meet Asami's adoptive father in a room bathed in dark red light, a sign that Shigeharu, like the audience, has entered purgatory. Everything then crescendos into terror while the descent into hell is inescapable.
The psychological horror and gore of the climax make it almost unbearable. But what makes the end efficient is the way in which the writer and director handle cinematic conventions. Contrary to Italian gore (one thinks of Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci) where each film is watched with derision as a puppet show stripped of any credibility, Audition starts like a conventional film and chloroforms the audience into an inoffensive and charming love story. Caught up in the system of a romantic narrative and the realistic context of the story, the audience is then brutally awakened by an unexpected and painful shot of horror.
Miike himself vehemently denies that Audition is meant as social criticism. In fact he denies the existence of any kind of artistic pretense in his films, instead stating that he is in no position to criticise his fellow men and that he simply wants to create the best possible result from the material offered to him. Whichever way you look at it, the film works. Psycho-thriller, social indictment or both, Audition proves to be a powerhouse.
Well, the last half-hour of Audition will certainly bring tears to your eyes. My mom always said you should watch out for the quiet ones. Welcome to what is perhaps the least extreme of Takashi Miike’s films and the one that truly cemented his reputation outside Japan as being one of the most extreme directors in the world, Audition; a film with such a horrifying final half-hour that it holds the dubious honor of having had the most audience walk-outs of all time during its premiere.
Widowed for several years, Shigeharu Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi) has raised his son with dignity but without real joy in a large house where silence echoes a painful absence. Envisioning himself remarried without really knowing how to go about it, the shy 40-something announces his project to his friend Yoshikawa (Jun Kunimura), a film producer who proposes putting on a false audition in order to find him a wife. Reading through resumes, Shigeharu discovers a very personal letter from an actress with whose pain he immediately identifies. He becomes infatuated with the young woman and decides to pursue her after the audition. Shigeharu and Asami (Eihi Shiina) become lovers until the day she disappears without a trace. Shigeharu then sets out to find her and slowly plunges into a nightmare that's all too real.
Based on a novel by Ryu Murakami, author of "Tokyo Decadence," and on a scenario by Daisuke Tengan, the son of Shohei Imamura, the movie affirms the unique vision of director Takashi Miike, beyond the yakuza films like Dead or Alive that made his reputation. Audition is above all a work of extreme precision that owes its success to the orchestra conductor's talent who meticulously directs this symphony of horror. Starting in a hospital room at the bedside of Shigeharu's wife, the film has an air of bittersweet drama before transforming into a romantic comedy during the audition scene. As the audience has acquired a sincere affection for the main character, viewers believe themselves to be embarked on a light comedy in the vein of Shall We Dance? The change of tone at the time of the audition as well as the film's title establish this scene as a pivotal to the plot, and so the audience expects unforseen consequences. The film then follows the game of cat and mouse between the two lovers while some strange scenes furtively appear, heralding what's to come. The transition is made smoothly until we meet Asami's adoptive father in a room bathed in dark red light, a sign that Shigeharu, like the audience, has entered purgatory. Everything then crescendos into terror while the descent into hell is inescapable.
The psychological horror and gore of the climax make it almost unbearable. But what makes the end efficient is the way in which the writer and director handle cinematic conventions. Contrary to Italian gore (one thinks of Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci) where each film is watched with derision as a puppet show stripped of any credibility, Audition starts like a conventional film and chloroforms the audience into an inoffensive and charming love story. Caught up in the system of a romantic narrative and the realistic context of the story, the audience is then brutally awakened by an unexpected and painful shot of horror.
Miike himself vehemently denies that Audition is meant as social criticism. In fact he denies the existence of any kind of artistic pretense in his films, instead stating that he is in no position to criticise his fellow men and that he simply wants to create the best possible result from the material offered to him. Whichever way you look at it, the film works. Psycho-thriller, social indictment or both, Audition proves to be a powerhouse.
Labels: MasterChugs Theater
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