Movie: Audition (1999)

Submitted by kwa on Sun, 04/05/2015 - 19:21

Audition (1999) Rated R: strong violence, very disturbing imagery

"True masterpiece if ever there was one"
-Quentin Tarantino

Audition was highly recommended to me for movies in the psychological genre of Japanese movies. It's an old movie, so I'm probably very late to the train on watching it. But if you're into movies like Kokuhaku, then this seems like a must-see movie. This entry is more of a philosophical treatise of the movie, if you want a more detailed synopsis, see this excellent review. Warning: this movie gets unexpectedly twisted and graphic.

This Movie Is Not What It Seems

This movie is open to interpretation, but Asami's dark side is mostly an illusion by the protagonist.

I see this movie as about the **divergence of reality and our perception of reality**. I've read a lot of reviews and those people who see this film as anything but a divergence from reality did not enjoy it. This is because if the events shown in this film actually happened, then it would be too crazy (as well as inconsistent). Other films have played beautifully on the inconsistencies and strangeness of dreams, such as Mulholland Drive, and you are left with a sense of what the heck happened?!

Shiina Eihi does an excellent job of showing of showing a dark and pure side.

Although extreme, it is true that we have a lot of biases in how we view reality. The same image can be scene completely differently by so many people. In this movie, we never really get to know the heroine, Asami, played wonderfully by Eihi Shiina. The movie is scene through the eyes of Shigeharu Aoyama (青山繁晴), who lost his wife and is looking to find someone to remarry. The scene where he first auditions Asami, you can tell that he has already made up his mind about who she is before ever getting to know her.

Why So Brutal?

Audition 1999 Asami with a syringe kiri kiri kiri

This syringe is only the beginning of the horrible things. The words "kiri kiri kiri" will disturb you.

I think the director really made it obvious he was dreaming. But the question is why did the dream have to be so disturbing? I think the real answer is that this movie is trying to appeal to the gore horror genre. However, I think the dream Aoyama had is as disturbingly unrealistic as his initial impression of Asami. Before getting to know her, he already envisioned her as this sweet angel just waiting for him patiently by the phone. This is further supported by the strange comments he gave her during her interview. Even his friend urged him to slow down and try to learn more about her, but he just couldn't wait.

Scenes like the above are subconscious manifestations of Aoyama's mind.

The audience also knew this was coming, as there were many scenes foretelling things were going to go dark. I think this is consistent with reality. When your perception is so skewed in one way, you can become strongly disillusioned the other way when that perception breaks.

"What the hell is this movie about?"

For example, when Asami and Aoyama meet on their second date, she says that she has been waiting for his call, and that she wasn't sure that he was going to call her back. Depending on her perception of her, this can mean so many things. When he thought of her as beautiful and pure, he can imagine her waiting by the phone for him. This is surely and positive message. When he thought back on how she could be evil, this now means she has obsessive, psychological problems. The reality is surely that none of these are true, and that she was just waiting for his callback for the audition. This seems pretty normal for actresses to be waiting for audition callbacks.

Japanese Culture

It is standard for Japanese resumes to have a photo picture such as the above.

This movie portrays the idealized Japanese woman: waiting in a room patiently for Aoyama to call, needing someone to depend on and take care of her, and being of a pure nature. There were many scenes of Aoyama as a young ballet dancer, being pristine and pure. As with reality, this view is easily broken and many men do become disillusioned in their mate. Women are pressured into keeping up this image of the perfect, Japanese housewife. This twisted sense of reality sets up for a strong dose of weltschmerz

The interview process is also closely related to Japanese culture. Many companies here hire women based on looks as sort of an audition for finding potential mates for their workers. Actually, being a bit too old still hurts a woman's chances of landing a big job at a big company. There are scenes of Aoyama looking through resumes/CVs with pictures of girls which is very consistent with looking through girl's profiles during hiring processes. Japanese 履歴書 (rirekisho / resumes) comes with a photo such as shown in the movie.

Note: We will have a future lesson featuring some Japanese psychological movies such Audition. Why not start learning now before we have that?

Dating in Relationships

What I really learned from this movie was that our perception of reality is sometimes really skewed. When Aoyama first meets Asami until the end of the movie, he knew very little about her but he rushed to make so many judgements about her character. When he idolized her, she was perfect. When he began to antagonize her, she became so evil and demented. The truth, if that is something you believe in, sits somewhere in between. In relationships, we oftentimes antagonize our partners. We think they are out to get us, going out of their way to destroy us and making us miserable. But in reality, everyone has their insecurities; everyone is just as clueless as you are. Which makes the scene at the end of this movie so beautiful where she is helpless lying on floor -- because the whole time, she was just scared of being hurt, she wasn't trying to hurt him

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