Audition / Takashi Miike (1999)
Audition is one of those films so good, you can't believe you ever watched it, when you consider its contents. It's a mean test of endurance that rivals Evil Dead. It's genuinely hard to sit through, despite being incredibly well made.
Where to begin. Takashi Miike made a romantic comedy? No, he sure didn't. The log line of the film,
and Act I are the set up of a film starring Paul Rudd and Reese Witherspoon that I'm certain I could convince you exists. When a lonely widower, Shigeharu Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi) tells his film producer friend about his deep sadness, the producer holds an audition for a film that doesn't exist, in order to attract potential brides! David Spade as the producer?* Neil Patrick Harris?
Audition isn't trying to be charming. Shigeharu sets his casting specs. He wants a quiet, traditional, obedient wife. He is lonely, but he isn't looking for a companion to love. He's looking–at least in part–for someone to care for him. It could be romantic. Instead it's transactional or worse, potentially abusive.
Shigeharu finds his potential mate at the audition. The beautiful, dutiful, quiet, demure Asami (Eihi Shiina). Audition goes exactly the opposite direction of anything with Paul Rudd from there. What we learn over the course of an increasingly stressful Act II is that Asami is all those things. And also a psychotic murderer.
Kiri kiri kiri kiri kiri kiri!
"Quiet, traditional, obedient wife." We learn through flashbacks those are the same words Asami's abuser used to reward her compliance. These flashbacks get harder and harder to watch, but somehow they aren't presented as justification or explanation of Asami's behavior, though they may be intended to do that. The neutral tone of the film just makes her past abuse a linear plot point.
One reading of the film is a feminist revenge story. Asami coolly taking action to balance the acts of a misogynist society so twisted, Shigeharu feels comfortable staging his audition. But Miike and cinematographer Hideo Yamamoto don't commit to that through action or direction. Miike is either a pure nihilist or something even worse. He makes no judgement of the behavior of his characters, which contributes to the meanness of this film. Shigeharu is conducting an intricate ruse. A conspiracy. In the real world–if conducted by anyone except Paul Rudd, this would be considered sociopathic and cruel. In a way, Asami has participated in the audition in good faith. She reads the situation and comports herself as that character. She plays the part and earns the role.
!Ryô Ishibashi and Eihi Shiina in Audition
Eihi Shiina, Asami has become a prototype villain that was central to torture porn, though I don't classify Audition as part of films with that label. She appears unfeeling. Unempathetic. All the uns. "Words create lies. Pain can be trusted," she says. "Only pain and suffering will make you realize who you are." Perhaps it's an attempt at fleshing out the character. Perhaps it's just dialogue to get to the next set of tools she'll pull out.
When Miike shows us the lengths to which Asami goes to feel what she identifies as love, it's shocking. Violent. Harsh. Mean. But also calculated. Calm. She is the character she auditioned to play. Quiet, at least. As she applies acupuncture needles to Shigeharu's eyelids and body, she quietly sings, "Kiri, kiri, kiri, kiri." Subtitled as "deeper, deeper," in the U. S. version, it's haunting because of her childlike tone. Appalling.
Even in the final shocking moments, the camera simply observes. There's no moral compass in the film that signals wrong, right or justice, if such a concept exists in this world.
Key scene
Spoilers below. Seriously.
The bag moves. Holy crap. Asami awaits the call from the producer for the audition she believed–or pretends she believed–would change her life in a dimly lit room. Her home is a mess. The phone sits on the floor, Asami kneeling beside it. She contorted in a slump as if her body is folding from the waiting. In the background, a canvas bag and other debris.
On the other side of the phone, Yasuhisa (Jun Kunimura) deliberates calling. Maybe he has second thoughts about what they're doing. Maybe he's not sure she's right for the "part." He begins dialing, then hangs up. Asami waits, motionless. He leaves his offices. Still, she waits. He slows down in the hallway and decides to make the call. The phone rings in her apartment, she doesn't move. One ring. Two rings. Three. Suddenly the bag twitches and rolls, revealing to us that it contains a person we have yet to see, as Asami leans forward towards the phone.
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My Letterboxd review