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AUDITION
6/10
Odishon
Japan
1999
director : Miike Takashi
script : Daisuke Tengan (based on novel by Ryu Murakami)
cinematography : Hideo Yamamoto
editing : Yasushi Shimamura
stars : Ryo Ishibashi, Eihi Shiina
115 minutes
“Do
you like Tarkovsky movies?” asks lonely widower Aoyama (Ishibashi), interviewing
potential brides on the pretext of casting for a movie. There’s little
trace of the Russian master’s influence on director Takashi here, but
he’s definitely a connoisseur of a very different, but (arguably) equally
talented European director, Italian horror legend Dario Argento. Though
Audition starts off agreeably low-key, we gradually slide into
a thoroughly Dario territory of gaudy colours and spectacular, irrational
violence as the demure Asami (Shiina), Aoyama’s selection as suitable
marriage material, reveals herself as an evil sadist in a final-act orgy
of stomach-churning excess.
And
that’s about it: boy meets girl - girl turns out to be a psychotic killer
-end of story. It’s refreshing to come across such an inexorably smooth
linear narrative, but Audition is just too linear, and feels
more than a little pleased with itself. Wow, Takashi says to us, you won’t
believe what this woman’s going to do to this poor guy – this review won’t
reveal the details, but it involves a somewhat messy amputation. But,
unlike Michael Haneke’s Funny Games –
another Tarkovsky-referencing, deliberately extreme vision of nightmarish
evil unleashed upon innocent protagonists – Audition neither functions
as a visceral thriller, nor on the philosophical level Takashi seems to
be aiming at: “Japan is finished,” remarks Aoyama’s best pal at one stage,
but that’s about as far as it goes. And, while Argento’s movies are often
ramshackle affairs, at least they’re never less than amazing to look at
– Takashi makes some clumsy use of filters, and when someone irritably
remarks “The whole thing is tilted,” many viewers will strongly sympathise.
From
the half-way point, Takashi confusingly alternates between ‘actual’ events,
dreams and what seem to be fantasies, thus preventing any effective build-up
of tension at what should be the crucial stages. There are some cheap
twists late on, along the lines of ‘I woke up and it was all a dream…
no, this is the dream… no, this is the dream’ that mainly serve
to try the viewer’s patience while making Asami’s background and motivations
unneccessarily baffling. Audition isn’t without tense scenes and
diverting moments, and there are some neat touches of black comedy, most
of them involving some nicely icky sound-effects. But it’s all a bit too
self-indulgent, with a definite air of ‘so-what,’ and if you’re after
a Japanese horror picture featuring a demonic female killer, Hideo Nakata’s
Ring is different class.
1st
April, 2001
by
Neil Young
Buy Audition
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