Audition

Audition is director Miike Takashi's first film to be released in the UK, and after this he'll be lucky if he's allowed to release another. This visceral account of the unfolding nightmare of one man's search to find a new wife is a pure assault on the sensibilities of viewers conditioned into feeling in control of the cinema they witness.

The film charts the journey of film-producer Aoyama (Ryô Ishibashi) following the death of his wife and the suggestion made by his son, seven years later, that he find a new wife. The meticulous framing of the film's opening hour provide the perfect foil for the rapid shifts in cinematic style that ambush any complacent audiences feeling that this will remain a charming art-house movie.

The drama begins after Aoyama's colleague, Yoshikawa (Jun Kunimura), a perfectly unproblematic misogynist, suggests he use his position as head of a film production company to hold an audition for a new wife, ostensibly the search for the lead in a dormant project. Over drinks, both men bemoan the loss of traditional Japan, embodied in the lack of any "good girls" left.

Aoyama's initial misgivings are replaced by enchantment when he notices the résumé of Asami (Eihi Shiina), a beautiful young woman who immediately seems a perfect fit; demure, sensitive, and artistically trained. From here, the manipulations of this complex film begin as we are given increasing invitations to doubt her good nature and her story. This hinges on the first striking moment when the film 'becomes' a horror - after promising Yoshikawa that he will resist attempting to contact Asami, her smile as the phone eventually rings is truly frightening.

The pair depart Tokyo for a weekend away where Aoyama intends to propose. After showing him two deep scars in her thighs and making him promise to love only her, the lovers embrace. On awaking, Asami has disappeared and Aoyama begins the descent into a hellish world of panic and despair at the thought of losing his perfect bride. The shifts of gear include shaky hand-held camera movements and surreal scenes of former suitors held captive. Dreamlike recollections of previous abuse provide the reflex reasoning that maintains our readings of Asami as the embodiment of retributive femininity.

Aoyama's 'betrayal' of Asami, in that the initial audition was simply a ruse, becomes the pretext for the horrifically long scenes of torture that form the climactic Grand Guignol finale. Lush hues replace monochrome tones and the representation of pain inflicted upon the drugged Aoyama could hardly be more graphic. Yet the humour remains, if you can bear to watch, as Asami does despicable things with cheese wire and acupuncture needles while murmuring "deeper, deeper", and almost giggling through the ordeal.

Despite rich pickings for the critique of patriarchal sexual politics and psychosexual cause and effect, the simple truth of this expertly manipulative film is that Audition is the story of one man's fear that the angel he hopes he has found is not the devil of his wildest imagination. This centres on the supposition that the opposite of human perfection is not imperfection but absolute evil. This works as cinema because it presents its tale in reassuring 'art-house' compositions before toying with horror-genre conventions that really explore just what it is the viewer wishes to see. Further, the fact that we are more likely to read Asami as a 'real' psychopath rather than the beautiful and vulnerable young woman that she is, says much about our cinematic literacy and our appetite for the symbolism of evil.

In the last resort, this may be one man's fear, but every woman's fantasy. "Mmmm, deeper deeper..."

Reviewed by Yoram Allon