Horrorfest 2010: Audition

AUDITION is the first Japanese horror film of horrorfest. I have to admit, in the early 2000s I got kind of sick of Japanese horror flicks. There was a big movement where basically everything from Japan was adapted into an American movie. People claimed the Japanese originals were superior, but they always seemed to kind of suck to me. Most of them were about creepy ghost kids, painted white with stringy hair making funny noises and lurching around awkwardly.

AUDITION, on the other hand, takes place in the real world -- basically. There are no ghost kids here, no curses, nothing supernatural. Just torture. Which, unfortunately, brings up another fad, this time of the latter half of the first decade of 2000 -- torture porn. You know, SAW, HOSTEL all those flicks where instead of horror you just get torture. Which, I guess if you're into torture, is cool. If not, it blows.

Luckily, AUDITION, despite being known for how extreme it is, takes a relatively restrained approach to the horror genre and, in fact, most of the first hour plays like a straight drama. Sure, there are some thriller elements and you can tell that not everything is quite right, but you really get engrossed in the story and genuinely wonder where it's going to go. You know it's not going to go well. You just don't know where it's going to go wrong. Or how.

That's why it's good to go into AUDITION without knowing too much. Unfortunately, the movie posters and box art feature images that kind of give some core elements away. Still, even with a basic idea of what was going to happen, I was surprised with the way AUDITION was able to string me along anyway.

AUDITION starts off as the tale of a widowed father (Ryo Ishibashi). His well-meaning teenaged son (Tetsu Sawaki) recommends he jump start his love life so he's not alone when the kid goes off to college. His filmmaker friend (Jun Kunimara) comes up with an ethically questionable scheme -- they'll stage auditions for a film production that's never going to happen, and the widowed father can use these auditions to find himself his next wife.

During the audition process, Ishibashi's character is quickly won over by an ex-ballerina (Eihi Shiina) who seems to be the picture perfect version of the demure, reserved, respectable Japanese wife. She's young, pretty, quiet, and smart. There are some early hints that something is a little off beneath the surface, but that draws Ishibashi's character in even more. He loves her and wants to be there for her. She seems to need him.

Without giving too much away, after a weekend getaway, the girl disappears. Ishibashi's character attempts to retrace her foot steps using her resume, but this only leads to several more mysteries and dead ends, each hinting at a more sinister past.

Here's where I have to stop describing the plot. Needless to say, it takes a couple twists. To the movie's credit, some of the last few sequences are strung together in a dream like manner, owing a lot to stream of consciousness. This way, you're never quite sure what's real and what's not -- what's happening now, what happened before, what's going to happen? The best way to view it is to take it basically literally -- let the images and instances speak for themselves. If Ishibashi's character seems to be taking a dream-like tour through the girl's chaotic past, then let him.

Again, I don't want to give anything away, but I do want to let you know what kind of images await you going into this film. There's a recurring image of a bag, apparently with a human stuffed inside, writhing around on the ground; a scene where a dog bowl of vomit is fed to someone; graphic use of a wire saw to sever limbs; the sinister application of painful acupuncture needles.

I'd say of all the movies I have watched this month, this one probably kept me on the edge of my seat the most. What's going to happen next, what is the truth, how horrible can this get, will the victims ever get out of this -- all that kind of stuff. As much as the ultra-violence was repulsive and totally backfired in CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, it works here. This is because you sense director Takashi Miike is not messing around with you. He doesn't cheat. Sure, the torture scenes are arranged with a fetishistic attention to detail (just check out Shiina's costume as an example), but by the time they arrive, the movie has totally earned them. This is not cheap.

Perhaps the movie's greatest strength is that it plays on very common fears, the way the best horror movies do. In this case, the root fears aren't even necessarily commonly associated with horror. Most of it has to do with relationships. The fear of being alone, the difficulty of meeting new people, dealing with trust issues, dealing with the past -- it's all here and instead of falling into the realm of romantic comedy or drama, it's uniquely used in the service of horror.

The main thing is, you can totally identify with Ishibashi's character. Okay, sure, maybe you wouldn't hold a fake film audition just to find a wife, but who doesn't feel lonely? Who doesn't want love? When faced with someone you love who's clearly damaged, who doesn't want to try to make it work? Who doesn't look the other way when a relationship you want to work so badly seems to be going south?

And, finally, who doesn't blame themselves for being deluded?