Audition/Ôdishon (2000)



    



          It is seven years after the death of Aoyama’s wife and he longs to find love again. A film producer friend suggests that they set up a fake casting audition, asking for actresses that fit the description of the type of woman that Aoyama is attracted to for a proposed film project. Doing so, Aoyama is drawn to the Asami Yamazaki, touched by the pain that she describes on her application form. Despite the friend’s warnings that the names she gave as references have disappeared, Aoyama becomes involved with her. That’s when things really get interesting.


          Overall: Another Takashi Miike film for me, and another disturbing experience in the bank. I gotta say if there is one thing everyone should go into this film knowing, it’s the phrase of “don’t give up on it.” The film starts quite slow and plodding. It’s a lot of set-up for a spectacular and disturbing ending. But you can sit through the first 45 minutes thinking it’s just gonna be some cheesy romance film, maybe a Japanese version of “Sleepless in Seattle.” Trust me, it’s a horror movie and if you stay long enough, you’ll get rewarded. The film has a lot to say about Japanese culture as well as fears about dating in today’s society. It’s like Forrest Gump’s saying about life: You never know what you’re gonna get. But it also points out some problems with the Japanese culture. And here’s a quote from another reviewer who says it better than I can:


Audition is a remarkable film experiment, and one full of profoundly black messages; that dating is a dangerous business; that women in Japan have to debase themselves and lose their dignity in order to get anywhere within such a male-dominated society; that the Japanese in particular work far too hard and try to take shortcuts in their social lives; and even as one of the characters in the film, Yoshikawa, states bluntly during a whole speech about the decline of Japanese civilization, “The whole of Japan is lonely”, implying perhaps that too much time is wasted by Japanese men worrying about their careers and not about their personal happiness.



          Comparison: You’ve Got Mail meets Ichi the Killer









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