Audition
There is nothing more profoundly
creepy than an innocent looking soft-spoken Japanese girl gone wrong. This
movie literally terrified me with its twists and turns, gore and soundtrack.
For the first half hour of the film I was, frankly, bored and than it all
unraveled before me. A film with
sex, vomit, psychological trauma, physical abuse, deformed humans, family,
death and pedophilia, the story became more and more convoluted the more you
were able to sit through. The director was great at setting the stage for all
of that horror by really making sure you felt like you could understand the
father’s life. The shots themselves were often close ups of his face or shots
from behind so that we felt like we were actually in the room with him watching
what he was doing. The camera
shots from a slight upward angle also made me feel like I was just a fly on the
wall witnessing his life. This technique made me feel the suspense even when
nothing was actually happening. This is a story that definitely keeps you on
your toes. I had to look away at
some parts because they were just so disturbing. The setting is one that anyone can identify with, as it is a
city environment, which is one we all recognize and can imagine well. The girl herself is portrayed as a very
sweet and innocent one, wearing mostly white in her scenes. It isn’t until we
find out her past that we see who she truly is. At its core this film is about loneliness
and isolation and how we react to extreme amounts of it. The girl continuously leads
an unhappy life because she has no one to turn to and is so incredibly lonely and
abused. The man’s wife died and he has been lonely ever since. I love the line in the film, which
states, “ All Japanese are lonely”. This statement pretty much sets the tone
for the film. There is also some
great foreshadowing in this film with the constant showing of the dog and a
line like, “ the unhappy can act well.” All in all this film was thoroughly disturbing and although I
am glad I tried it, as its good to always try new things, it is not an
experience I want to repeat anytime soon. I can still imagine her look at the
end of the film. It still sends shivers down my spine.
Well-done Takashi Miike.
No comments:
Post a Comment