Audition is a movie I feel
almost unqualified to talk about. The film, while Japanese, is
mostly easy to follow for a Western viewer. However, the real
problem is how to interpret the main character, the widower Aoyama
Shigeharu (Ryo Ishibashi). As a Western viewer, I see him as
unquestionably sleazy. He goes along with a completely immoral
scheme concocted by his friend and co-worker, Yasuhisa (Jun
Kunimura), to use a casting call for a movie to find potential
brides, so that Aoyama can “comfort” one of the women who’s
rejected.
I suspect, but can’t confirm, that
having Yasuhisa come up with this plan was an attempt to keep our
sympathies with Aoyama. However, I’m uncertain of the extent. At
best, I see Aoyama as a weak-willed Yes Man. And at worst, as a
sleazy opportunist, eager to pass the buck to someone else in his own
mind. During the first act, he periodically reminds us of how
uncomfortable he is with the idea, even as he makes no effort to end
the plan. Who’s to blame here may seem unimportant, but it leaves
me uncertain whether this film is supposed to be about sin and
punishment, or a man having horrible things happen to him through no
fault of his own.
Just their luck, the woman Aoyama
selects happens to be a serial killer named Yamazaki Asami (Eihi
Shiina). The reveal for this is slow, as she’s initially treated
as a perfect romantic partner, even after Yasuhisa is unable to
confirm any of her references. For this period, it appears that
she’s going to open up to Aoyama about a dark and troubled past
that he’ll help her to overcome.
Don’t get me wrong, Asami’s dark
and troubled past is there. She was physically and sexually abused
by her amputee stepfather. She’s a damaged person, incapable of
forming normal attachments. We’re shown her apartment, which has
no furniture, just a phone, and a man being held prisoner in a bag.
This is literally the first shot of the movie to hint at the horror
genre, and it comes an hour into the film. Asami sits next to her
phone, unmoving, waiting for Aoyama to call.
From this point on the film still holds
back the horror for the final act, but ceases pretenses regarding
what it is. The music becomes more foreboding, the lighting becomes
subtly dimmer, and Aoyama discovers that one of Asami’s former
employers was murdered, and another is currently missing.
Asami’s wrath being brought to bear
against Aoyama is inevitable. The thing that sets her off is a
miscommunication which I’m, once again, somewhat limited in my
ability to interpret. Asami asks Aoyama to confirm that he loves
“only” her, and he affirms this. However, she later discovers
that he is a widower and has a teenage son (Tetsu Sawaki). My
ability to interpret sympathy is not limited in this case strictly by
cultural barriers, but by simple language barriers. As I do not
speak Japanese, I have no idea if the “love” she was asking him
about would have been strictly romantic, and if it would have
included a deceased partner. Without this context, I’m uncertain
if he lied, or if she overreacted.
In contrast to the earlier scenes, I
think that on this point Western sympathies are with Aoyama who
merely left out extraneous qualifiers while declaring his love to the
woman of his dreams. On the other hand, in Western society, a woman
demanding that a man declare his love for “only me” would be seen
as a gigantic red flag that the woman was emotionally unstable, and
likely to be extremely jealous.
While it’s only in the last act of
the film that Asami becomes a direct physical threat, she easily
makes this the most memorable part. The comparison to Misery
is obvious, particularly when Asami removes Aoyama’s feet with
razor wire to keep him immobile. However, I found Asami to be far
more frightening that Annie Wilkes. This is likely a case in which
the film’s cultural divide works to its advantage. Asami, unlike
Annie, never yells or screams. She giggles while torturing Aoyama,
retaining her poise and grace in a way that seems unnerving to
American viewers.
The final act of the movie does an
excellent job of playing with the viewer’s perception of reality.
We’re treated to Aoyama having fantasies, or perhaps visions, that
we can tell are in his head, mixed with other increasingly ambiguous
imagery. However, even the most obvious hallucinations raise further
questions.
A good example of this is Asami’s
bagman. He seems to simply appear to Aoyama, and then disappear at
one point. However, Aoyama never encountered him outside of his
delusions. So how would Aoyama’s unconscious mind be aware of him,
unless the entire concept of Asami holding a man hostage in a bag was
all part of some elaborate fantasy? Hell, earlier in the film,
before the hallucinations were implied to have begun, Aoyama
interacts with Asami’s stepfather who she murders in flashback.
Probably the most clever trick the
director pulls is to show Aoyama hallucinating himself next to Asami
in bed, trying to escape from the pain... or perhaps just waking up
from a guilt-ridden nightmare, only to drift back to sleep and finish
out the dream. While simply having the movie be a dream would have
been a cheap cop-out, leaving us there staring and wondering
certainly gives an added edge to everything.
The mindscrew continues right up until
the very end of the film where Asami is knocked down the stairs by
Aoyama’s son and paralyzed. She begins to speak to Aoyama,
repeating her words from their second date... or she’s dead and
Aoyama is hallucinating... or this is all a bad dream.
You can probably already tell that I
could easily write a book going through this movie scene-by-scene to
determine exactly what it means. However, the biggest question is
simply whether or not it’s scary. And the answer is yes,
absolutely, unquestionably, this movie will scare you. See it if and
only if that’s what you’re looking for.
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