I’ll just do a repost of the old TypePad review of Audition.
[Originally posted on 6/22/06]
It’s all fun and games until you wind up living in a burlap bag.
[Warning: I have no problem spoiling the end of a movie.]
I will be the first to admit that I do not get out much as far as dating goes. Aside from my own introverted nature, I take it to heart that one should not talk to strangers. The world is very large and very, very strange. After watching Ôdishon (or Audition) I now have an excuse to never date again. Hell, I may never talk to anyone again after this thing.
The back of the DVD offers this plot synopsis of Audition:
A middle-aged widower is urged by his teenage son and a film producer friend to start dating again. They devise a plan to hold a phony film audition to meet new women. The widower falls for a beautiful ballerina with a suspicious past, and their courtship veers from polite romance to psycho-nightmare!
So, here we are with a typical movie situation: guy falls for a crazy chick and she turns out to be, well, crazy. The first hour or so almost seems like it could be a goofy romantic comedy. The actual audition is full of dumb gags and even has some brief partial nudity. Some time into this, after our middle aged protagonist Aoyama has fallen for his new girlfriend, we get a few shots of our pretty young thing staring intently at her telephone with a rather odd look on her face. We also catch a glimpse of a large sack in the corner of her room, which is clearly bad news.
This is where the understatement in the synopsis becomes astounding. Move aside lady from Play Misty for Me, move aside lady from Fatal Attraction, for you two are no Asami Yamazaki. Asami has had a rather bad childhood, with abusive family and a truly evil ballet instructor. Apparently, she also has an ex-boyfriend that she keeps in a bag. Boiling a bunny is psycho. Threatening others with murder is psycho. Mutilating your ex-boyfriend (as in cutting off his feet, some fingers and his tongue,) stuffing him into a bag and feeding him your own vomit – that’s…special. I mean, we are talking downright artistic. You get to watch your weight while tormenting some guy and keeping him alive at the same time. Asami should have taken up painting. She’s just that clever. We have not even reached what she does to our widower yet.
When she says something to Aoyama along the lines of “Love me and me only,” it must of course be kept in mind that this is a literal request and also an impossible order. The man has a son, a dead wife, a dog, and friends. Aoyama, of course, doesn’t take this request literally, and he winds up losing a foot, a dog and almost a son to our lovely Asami before she breaks her neck at the bottom of some stairs. He also ends up on the receiving end of some amateur acupuncture.
This movie falls into the general horror/thriller category of male anxiety about female obsession and sexuality. Aoyama, it appears, has had a fling with one of his employees and then allows his friend to concoct this whole audition scam so he can find himself a girlfriend. Thus, we have both guilt and deception on the part of our protagonist, and nasty things ensue.
What makes Audition atypical for this genre is that Aoyama is really not such a bad guy. He actually is in love with Asami, as opposed to the typical one-nighter-that-ends-in-disaster-movie guy who is just getting his rocks off. This is perhaps what makes the plot more shocking than something we are more used to: Aoyama is, really, a normal guy trying to find a girlfriend and stabilize his life. He is not cheating on his wife or even treating Asami badly. She just happens to be completely out of her mind.
The yuck factor in Audition is a perfect ten severed heads out of ten, something I have seen less and less of lately in American cinema that seems to be popping up abroad. The stuff in here is gross. I had trouble watching it, and I’ve been watching slasher flicks for fifteen years. Definitely not for the weak of heart or stomach.
A work of art, if interpreted properly, can help us improve our lives. Here are some lessons I learned from Audition:
1. Never trust a Japanese dating service (similar to The Grudge, as in never trust a Japanese realtor.)
2. Find out about her before she finds out about you. I mean hobbies, family, interests, all that stuff.
3. Related to number 2, if these things seem at all odd or inconsistent, it’s okay to run away screaming.
4. Don’t date.
5. Don’t leave the house.
Yours Truly,
The Editor
Among the Barbarians 