>>12 SERIES ISSUE #04 APRIL 12

I never felt unhappy. Because I have been unhappy all the time.
Audition

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Contents
p.1 Plot p.5 Trivia p.6 The cast p.9 Review

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Shigeharu Aoyama (Aoyama Shigeharu) (Ryo Ishibashi), a middle-aged man who lost his wife, Ryoko Aoyama (Aoyama Ryko) to an illness seven years prior, is urged by his 17-year-old son, Shigehiko Aoyama (Aoyama Shigehiko) (Tetsu Sawaki), to begin dating women again. Aoyamas friend and colleague, Yasuhisa Yoshikawa (Yoshikawa Yasuhisa) (Jun Kunimura), a film producer, devises a plan to hold a mock-audition, in which young, beautiful women would audition for the part of Aoyamas new wife, under the impression that they are auditioning for a new film. Aoyama is immediately enchanted by Asami Yamazaki (Yamazaki Asami) (Eihi Shiina). In her audition, Asami says that she was once a ballerina, but had to give up dancing after an injury. Aoyama, still reeling from the death of his wife, is attracted to her apparent emotional depth. Yoshikawa warns him about Asami, saying that he has a bad feeling about her; he couldnt reach any of the references on her rsum, and her job history is shaky. The music producer she claimed to work for has gone missing. Aoyama is so enthralled by her, however, that he pursues the romance anyway. She lives in an empty apartment, furnished only with a sack and a telephone. Four days after the audition, she sits perfectly still in the middle of the floor next to the telephone, waiting for it to ring. When it finally does, the sack lurches across the room and makes gurgling sounds. She ignores it as she waits a few rings before answering. When Asami answers the phone, she confesses to Aoyama that she never expected him to call. After several dates, she agrees to accompany him to a seaside hotel. Once at the hotel, Asami tells Aoyama about the abuse she suffered as a child and shows him the burn scars on her body. A deeply moved Aoyama pledges his love, and they have sex. The next morning, Aoyama is awakened by a telephone call; it is the front desk wondering if, since his companion left, he too would be checking out. He realizes Asami is nowhere to be found. Aayoma tries to track her down using her rsum, but she is nowhere to be found. Aoyama visits the old ballet studio where Asami claimed to have trained for 12 years. He finds that the studio is now inhabited only by a wheelchair-bound old man with artificial feet. It is revealed that the man inflicted the burn scars on Asamis legs.

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Then he goes to the bar where Asami used to work and someone tells him that it has been closed for a year because the woman who was in charge, the wife of a record producer, was found dismembered. When the police put her body back together, they found three extra fingers, an extra ear, and an extra tongue. Asami goes to Aoyamas house during his search. Once there, she finds a photo of his dead wife. Enraged, she drugs his liquor decanter and hides. Aoyama comes home, pours a drink, and begins feeling the effects of the drug. The movie cuts to a sequence about Asamis past and present. In one scene, the contents of the sack are revealed to be a man missing both feet, his tongue, one ear and three fingers on one hand. He crawls out of the sack and begs for food. Asami vomits into a dog dish and places it on the floor for the man. The man sticks his face in the bowl of vomit, and hungrily consumes it. Aoyama collapses, and Asami returns to the drugged and paralyzed Aoyama. As she walks into the room, the audience sees the twisted body of Aoyamas pet dog. She proceeds to inject Aoyama with an agent that paralyzes his body, but keeps his nerves alert. She then tortures him with needles in his abdomen and under his eyes. As she is torturing him, she tells him that, just like everyone else in her life, he has failed to love only her she cannot stand that he would have even platonic feelings for anyone else, even his own son. She explains that she is torturing him to teach him the meaning of needing someone. She tells him that, words create lies, pain can be trusted. She then cuts off his left foot with a wire saw while giggling.

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While Asami begins to cut off his other foot, she is surprised by Aoyamas son returning home. She hides and prepares to attack him. He discovers his father on the floor, turns, and is surprised by Asami. Suddenly Aoyama has a dream that he is waking up after he and Asami had made love for the first time, and that his ordeal was only a nightmare. She says that she accepts his marriage proposal, despite him never actually proposing, and says that she is the heroine of his life. He awakes from this dream to see his son swing around and Asami fail to disable him. Shigehiko runs up a flight of stairs to escape her; as she follows him, he kicks her down the stairs, breaking her neck. Aoyama tells his son to call the police. As Aoyama lies in agony on the floor, he continues to stare at the dying figure of Asami, her neck broken in a way that she is facing him. She mutters things that she had told him earlier about waiting for his call, and being excited to see him again. He then remembers that, in his dream, he comforted her about her abuse history by saying, Its hard to forget about...but someday youll feel...that life is wonderful.

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Trivia

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in fact i Shiina) prisoner is fed to Asamis (Eih mit claims that Eihi is a The dog bowl of vo Eihi. Takashi Miike al vomit of actress the actu is. insisted on doing th method actress and re scene e onset of the tortu to end the film at th ed the producers told Takashi Miike want for. However, one of film is now famous that the to the end. and see it through him to be a man kashi yama is fictional. Ta ami injects into Ao As difficult The paralyzing drug m would have been it up because the fil e Miike said they mad such a drug. without contriving to finish mas sed on, both of Aoya that the movie is ba in the In the original story re scene. However, red during the tortu kashi feet were dismembe l. In the final film Ta smemberment at al di it wasnt script there was no moved even though e foot should be re on fference. Miike decided only be splitting the di idered his choice to ns in the script. He co

Ryo Ishibashi ... Shigeharu Aoyama Eihi Shiina ... Asami Yamazaki Tetsu Sawaki ... Shigehiko Aoyama Jun Kunimura ... Yasuhisa Yoshikawa

The Cast

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Words create lies. Pain can be trusted.

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Wife Hunting Sure Is a Sick And Frightful Business ELVIS MITCHELL

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The Japanese psychological horror film Audition has been responsible for throngs of shaken filmgoers staggering out of theaters for the last year or so; its Fatal Attraction with a sense of morality instead of a need to pander -- specifically, the movies theme is the objectification of women in Japanese society and the mirror-image horror of retribution it could create. Patronizing audiences may be a sure way to make money, but the resulting pictures are like writing on sand; Audition, now at the Film Forum, has no such impermanence. With a quiet thats meticulously transformed into moodiness and then fear-filled tension, the director Takashi Miike eases us in slowly; in the early part, the picture has the formal modesty of a work by Yasujiro Ozu, the Japanese director best known for his minimalist melodramas in which a vital element is missing from a family. In Audition, whats missing is a wife. The face of Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi) is slack with sadness. Hes a widower who has raised his son by himself. This solid middle-class citizen is finally persuaded to look for a new woman in his life by a friend who has a cold-blooded idea. Aoyoma is a television producer, and the friend has him try to find someone by auditioning women under the pretext of looking for an actress for his next project. Asami (Eihi Shiina), who catches his eye, is a demure pastry in virginal white. After a few dates, she disappears and Aoyama, who has allowed himself to be vulnerable, is stricken. When we find what Asami has been doing when she isnt seeing Aoyama -- besides apparently sitting motionless by the phone -- hearts skip a beat. The picture is about victims -- Asami has most definitely suffered more than Aoyama -- but its also a great, sick rush with a kicker on the level of The Vanishing. In Audition, though, the awful denouement is earned. Mr. Miikes talents include patience. Nothing is rushed here, and he lets horror mount. (His most recent film, Dead or Alive, was a crime drama catalog of shock effects by a man capable of showy and empty gestures, all reflexes. This film is the polar opposite, where every note is thought through and worked out.)

When his vision clears and he sees whats really there, its much too late.
Aoyamas loneliness gives Audition density and shape. Its a thoughtful element that provides the picture with a rooting interest, and he seems too decent a man to have gone along with the crass scheme of turning women into items in a display case -- its as low as the stories of showbiz people who thumb through stacks of actresses photos looking for dates. Mr. Miikes skill comes in the accretion of emotional details and in his knack for dropping information in at just the right instant. Aoyama cant help but evoke ambivalence; though were sympathetic to his plight, he has done the wrong thing. It would be easier if he were mean, or crazy. Its worse -- at heart, hes a desperate romantic who has fallen for a mirage. When his vision clears and he sees whats really there, its much too late. Mr. Miike doesnt hold everything in check: he simply keeps information from Aoyama, but not from the audience. The most telling and unforgettable horror is performed with a straight face, no winks or smirks to let us off the hook. Audition could be an O. Henry story as directed by Douglas Sirk in full Written on the Wind mode, and the climactic scenes in which the true heart of darkness is revealed are gruesome and nightmarish. Its beyond what Aoyama could ever have imagined, and youll probably flash back to that first image of Asami in her white wrapper; she was obviously auditioning Aoyama, too. Unfortunately for him, he failed the tryout. Audition doesnt let you down, but bring a strong constitution -- like any audition, its a test of nerve.

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This wire can cut through flesh and bone easily.

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12 series Issue four

Audition