The Movie Moment: Audition (1999, Takashi Miike)

Posted by Peter Smith
SPOILER WARNING: If you haven’t seen Audition, stop reading and rent it. Like, right now. We’ll still be here when it’s over. 

Halloween and horror have always gone together, and it took some time to choose the scary movie to spotlight here.  Should I write up an old standby, I wondered, or something more modern? But in the end, there was only one logical choice — Takashi Miike’s Audition, made in 1999 but already a horror classic. I first heard about Audition in 2001, during its American release. A certain amount of hype had risen around the film. I was skeptical — genre fans are prone to hyperbole, praising every buzzed-about title like it’s one for the ages. But in the words of Joaquin Phoenix, "the nerds were right," and Audition has become one of my Halloween traditions. 

 

Audition starts slowly, taking its time to get to the scary stuff, as Miike takes care to establish his characters and the plot. This is the story of Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi), a middle-aged widower working in the entertainment industry. Deciding to marry again, he contrives a process to "audition" women as possible mates, masquerading as a movie casting call. Here he meets Asami (Eihi Shiina), a demure twentysomething who makes a strong impression on him. When I first saw the film, I wondered what direction the story might take. Would this become a stalker thriller? Would it turn psychological? Or was Miike going for slow-burn horror? 

But all my thoughts of classifications and subgenres flew right out the window about forty-five minutes into Audition. After a promising first date, Asami disappears for a few days, and Aoyama finally calls her for another date. After Aoyama dials the phone, Miike cuts to Asami’s small, sparsely decorated flat, which appears to contain only a telephone and a large canvas duffel. She kneels silently, intently, as the telephone rings — four, six, eight times. Finally, on the tenth ring, the mysterious bag suddenly lurches and emits an unnatural roar. 

 

"What the hell was that?!" I thought. Had I been eating popcorn, it would’ve gone flying. All of a sudden, I saw what the fuss was about, and I realized what Miike had been doing up to that point. Setting up the story and establishing the characters was about more than delaying the scares; it was softening us for the kill. And kill it did — I was hooked. 

Thankfully, the rest of Audition didn’t let me down, with Miike taking the horror to even more twisted places. The only reprieve comes near the end of the film, during an already famous scene in which Asami tortures Aoyama with acupuncture needles. Suddenly, Miike cuts to the couple in bed, in a hotel room where they vacationed before everything went wrong.  On that first viewing, I feared the worst — had Miike wussed out with an it-was-just-a-dream ending?  But I needn’t have worried. No sooner has Asami proclaimed to Aoyama her love and devotion than the soundtrack is flooded with Asami’s chillingly girlish mid-torture taunt, "kiri-kiri-kiri-kiri…" ("deeper, deeper"). If horror is about toying with the audience, then Audition is undoubtedly a masterpiece. — Paul Clark

 Older Movie Moments here. 
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Posted Oct 26 2007, 03:00 PM
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