Powerfully Horrific But Maybe A Bit Too Much??? (Audition (DVD))

Member Name: Cwej1

Product:	Audition (DVD)
Date:	30/01/02 (77 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fantastic lead actress, Original

Disadvantages: Unnecessarily violent

Prior to 'Audition', the only Eastern produced horror film I had seen was 'Ring'. 'Ring' had been proclaimed to 'make The Blair Witch Project look like a walk in the park'. The reviewers horribly misinformed me about 'Ring', because I thought it was a relatively unscary (if well made) horror movie.

The opposite can be said for 'Audition'. I sensed that 'Audition' would not be 'a walk in the park' from the front cover - but I do not think anything could have prepared me for the stark horror that is apparent in the closing sequence to this movie.

What would make the film even more shocking would be if you hadn't seen the front cover of the DVD and went into the film with no preconceptions whatsoever because without those things you would be very much forgiven for thinking that the film is merely a lovable romantic drama in the first hour or so. If you want to be totally shocked by this film go and watch it now and read the rest of this review afterwards - but be warned it WILL shock.

The plot revolves around Shigeharu Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi), a middle-aged widower who is told by his teenage son (Tetsu Sawaki) that he ought to get himself a new wife to make him all-man again. Sexist this may sound, but the women get their revenge don't worry. Aoyama and his friend Yoshikawa (Jun Kunimura) stage a fake audition for a movie which is really an audition to search for a new wife for Aoyama. Unfortunately for him, he makes the mistake of falling in love with the beautiful and fantastically well-played Ayami (Eihi Shiina). And it is from here that the reality behind the originally meek and mild Ayami comes out...

Horror film fans will be disappointed with the first half of the movie - non-horror film fans will be disappointed with the second half. And unfortunately this is where Takasi Miike's 'Audition' is flawed somewhat. This isn't just a sudden change
from slight thriller to supernatural thriller or from romance to drama as can be seen in many films. This is a change from zero on the horror rating, to just above the ten mark I would say. This has its advantages. The denouement is one of the most shocking things I have ever witnessed on my TV screen but would it have been so shocking had the film been a horror from the beginning? It's unlikely. It certainly adds originality to the film as well.

However, any subtlety in the film is lost from the moment that the (mightily extended, might I add) climactic final scene begins. I am even tempted to say that it goes from being an interesting study in psychoticism to becoming a horror movie for horror's sake. Do we really need to see that bit at the end? (You'll know exactly what I mean - the bit where we are seeing Aoyama and Ayami through a patio door). Probably not. But Miike has kept it in.

That is the reason that I disagree with a lot of the reviewers who state that this is a film about female repression and the ultimate in feminist movies. Or that this is a warning message about trusting people too easily. In my eyes the graphic nature of the violence makes this merely a shocker with no hidden meanings.

Takashi Miike's direction is bizarre at times. The number of wide shots of whole scenes is bewildering and we seem to get closeups of the stars very rarely. Perhaps this is to contrast with the final scene where virtually the whole time we are intimately close to the lead characters, but it doesn't quite add up for me.

The acting shines from the four lead roles but to me Shiina's disturbing change from innocent little girl to one of the most harrowing torturers in the history of cinema is a standout performance, which I rarely say for movies in foreign languages (not because I feel foreign speaking actors are bad but because I feel it is difficult to evaluate their performance! Don't get me wrong on tha
t one...)

This film is unnerving to say the least. Far, far scarier than 'Ring' but in places unnecessarily violent. This isn't like 'I Know What You Did Last Summer' where people are killed off in a single 1 second shot on the camera - the torture scenes are unbearably long. If there is supposed to be a message in the film it is lost on me. However, it is daring, original and stays with the viewer for a long time after the closing credits and the female lead is powerfully played. The pros and cons seem to balance themselves out and for this reason 3 stars is my rating.

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