AUDITION is a film I knew little about before watching - modern Japanese cinema is something I'm not very knowledgeable about and Japanese "horror" films even less so. I had heard about AUDITION being extremely dark, brutal and disturbing with some amazing twists during its cinema run, so out of curiosity I had to rent it. What I got was a mixed movie, sometimes gripping but definitely not one I would call "entertaining" to watch. For the first hour and twenty minutes, it's a slow-paced tale of romance with some mystery aspects which keeps you watching through some interesting, subdued direction from Takashi Miike. This gives the film its realistic edge, and it also incorporates some strong acting on the parts of the two leads; Ryo Ishibashi creates a portrait of a sad, lonely middle-aged man so that you have a ton of sympathy for his character and can relate to his desperation. In comparison, Eihi Shiina's almost unearthly look - there is something very fragile and beautiful about her - sits well with her mysterious and unexplained character whom nobody else in the film seems to know much about. Shiina is excellent in the role and deserves to go on to a big career in Japan.
For the first hour and twenty minutes - normally the running time for a "normal" Western film - there isn't much horror here to tell about, other than a few flashy disturbing images of a severed tongue slapping on the floor, a man getting his head slowly and deliberately sliced off, and a great shock sequence involving a moving bag. Then, at around that eighty minute mark, the film begins to change and become colder and disturbing. Dreams are mixed with reality to create a visually confusing film and Miike delights in tormenting the viewer with a hideous image of a man in a sack with no feet and few fingers. You begin to wonder what the hell is going on, and then the films ends ambiguously making you wonder whether what you just watched really happened or not.
Before that ending comes one of the strongest - in terms of physical torture - segments of a film that I've yet to see, which is tough to sit through. Basically it's a scene of a paralysed Ishibashi being slowly and deliberately tortured by Shiina, who delights in getting as much pain as possible from her victim. First via the use of strategically-inserted needles, and then in the film's most stomach-churning moment, she actually saws his foot off - in graphic detail. This is far stronger and darker stuff than many of the shoddy and amusing video nasties that were prosecuted in the early '80s, yet is released uncut today in Britain - it shows how much our society has changed. The realism of this sequence makes it pretty nauseous and you can't help but be grateful when it's all over. So did it really happen? I don't know, and I don't plan on watching this film again anytime soon to find out. It's very interesting stuff and highly disturbing, as well as being well-made, but an entertaining movie it is not.
For the first hour and twenty minutes - normally the running time for a "normal" Western film - there isn't much horror here to tell about, other than a few flashy disturbing images of a severed tongue slapping on the floor, a man getting his head slowly and deliberately sliced off, and a great shock sequence involving a moving bag. Then, at around that eighty minute mark, the film begins to change and become colder and disturbing. Dreams are mixed with reality to create a visually confusing film and Miike delights in tormenting the viewer with a hideous image of a man in a sack with no feet and few fingers. You begin to wonder what the hell is going on, and then the films ends ambiguously making you wonder whether what you just watched really happened or not.
Before that ending comes one of the strongest - in terms of physical torture - segments of a film that I've yet to see, which is tough to sit through. Basically it's a scene of a paralysed Ishibashi being slowly and deliberately tortured by Shiina, who delights in getting as much pain as possible from her victim. First via the use of strategically-inserted needles, and then in the film's most stomach-churning moment, she actually saws his foot off - in graphic detail. This is far stronger and darker stuff than many of the shoddy and amusing video nasties that were prosecuted in the early '80s, yet is released uncut today in Britain - it shows how much our society has changed. The realism of this sequence makes it pretty nauseous and you can't help but be grateful when it's all over. So did it really happen? I don't know, and I don't plan on watching this film again anytime soon to find out. It's very interesting stuff and highly disturbing, as well as being well-made, but an entertaining movie it is not.