In the 1990s, the mainstream Japanese cinema began to grow stagnant. Studios kept their box office power through the use of distribution and forced employees and business partners to buy tickets. As a result, young students began directing their own, independent films with 8mm cameras. These independent films gained critical acclaim at film festivals and found distributors in other nations across the world (Thompson 646). One of these directors, named Takashi Miike, emerged on the scene in 1991 with a film called Toppuu! Minipato tai – Aikyacchi Jankushon. Since that time, Miike has directed over sixty films (Internet Movie Database). One of Miike’s most-famous films was released in the year 1999, called Audition (Ôdishon in Japan).
Audition, based on a novel written by Ryu Murakami, is the story of a middle-aged widower named Aoyama (played by Ryo Ishibashi). His teenage son, Shigehiko (played by Tetsu Sawaki) encourages Aoyama to remarry. Aoyama has issues with going out into the dating world. As he says to a friend of his, he wants to be able to observe a lot of girls and then make his choice. His friend, Yoshikawa (played by Jun Kunimura), who is a film producer, tells Aoyama to hold an audition to locate his perfect girl. Yoshikawa arranges for production to begin on a fake film so Aoyama can sit in on the auditions and pick out his ideal wife. Of over two hundred young women who audition for the film, Aoyama reads through the applications and chooses a young woman who seems to be his ideal woman named Asami (played by Eihi Shiina). Asami is just the type of woman Aoyama has been looking for-young, talented, soft-spoken, and beautiful. Despite objections from Yoshikawa, Aoyama pursues this newfound relationship with gusto and proposes to Asami in almost no time at all.
As this is all going on, we see Asami sitting in a dark room, waiting by the phone for Aoyama to call her. Sitting by her side is something that is inside a large sack, thrashing around. This is where the film takes a decidedly darker turn. Asami seems to vanish, and Aoyama can find no way to contact her. Then, one night, he comes home and is drugged. When he awakes, he find that he cannot move, but he can still feel as Asami lays him out on a mat and begins to torture him through the use of acupuncture needles.
Audition is a film with many layers, and it is a very shocking film. It has a running time of one hundred and fifteen minutes, and a majority of that time is spent on set-up and development. In the beginning, viewers are led to believe that the film is set up as a romantic comedy. However, Miike rapidly shifts gears in the second half and a scene of true horror unfolds before the viewers. The torture scenes are particularly difficult to watch, for both their graphic nature and for the sheer joy that is apparent on Asami’s face during these scenes.
Miike has said that the film isn’t intended as social commentary, and while that may not have been the intention of Audition, one can certainly make that interpretation by looking at Japanese culture (Mes). In Japanese culture, Buddhism is very apparent, and in the Japanese culture, there is a belief that a new relationship cannot exist unless there is some previous relationship, or a third party to bring two people together. In Japan, this concept is referred to as go-en (De Mente 21). In Aoyama, we can see the presence of go-en. He wants to remarry; yet he feels that he cannot go out into the world and start dating again. So he goes through his friend, Yoshikawa, and through Yoshikawa, Aoyama is able to make a connection with Asami and establishes a sort of go-en.
Another concept of Japanese culture is a concept known as amae, which is their word to describe a sort of indulgent love. In Japan, amae can only be accepted if individuals put aside their own selfish interests. In a sense, amae is a sort of unconditional love where one must love their partner completely (De Mente 8). This is where the character of Asami enters into the picture, for she seems to embody the philosophy of amae. Yet, although she gives herself unconditionally to Aoyama, she feels that Aoyama does not give himself fully to her. During the torture scene, she says, “you’re supposed to love only me, no one else.”
This leads into another important theme in the film, and these are the feelings of haji, or shame (De Mente 111). During the audition, you can see that Aoyama is very uncomfortable watching these women audition, he feels ashamed of himself. When he meets Asami and he discovers how much she fits his ideal, he feels more shame. This also leads to the role of women in Japan. Although under the Buddhist principles, women are seen as equal, there was a time when Confucianism was prevalent, and during this period, Japan put more emphasis on men. This relates to miai kekkon, or love by arrangement. Even today, thirty per cent of marriages in Japan are arranged marriages, and older people in Japan feel men are superior to women (De Mente 251). During the film, Aoyama’s secretary appears to act very awkward around him. Later on in the film, we see a dream sequence where Asami drops to her knees before Aoyama and says, “I want to please you.” When Aoyama looks back down at her, he sees his secretary who says, “I only wanted you to love me.” The implication is that Aoyama had an affair with his secretary and perhaps gave her the promise of something more, but never followed up on it. During this sequence, Aoyama sees his son’s girlfriend coming onto him, implying that there is not much of an age difference between his son and Asami, and that he feels shame for going after a woman so young. There is also another segment in this dream, where Aoyama is in a restaurant with Asami and he finds his late wife, his son, and his son’s girlfriend sitting at a table together. Aoyama introduces his wife, Ryoko, to Asami. Ryoko sees her then backs away and says, “no, she’s no good for you.” This dream is more of a manifestation of the shame Aoyama feels, because he feels that he is betraying Ryoko’s memory by pursuing a relationship with Asami.
We discover through Aoyama’s dream sequence that the thing in the sack in Asami’s apartment is a former lover who has been tortured and had his tongue cut out. Most of these images we see of Asami as a vindictive woman are called into question, for in the middle of the torture, Aoyama passes out and he awakens in bed next to Asami, in a scene that takes place about halfway into the movie, before Asami seems to disappear. When Aoyama goes back to sleep, he wakes up back in the torture situation. This calls the entire second half of the film into question, and the viewer is left to wonder-is the second half of the movie reality, or is it simply a nightmare, spurned by Aoyama’s incredible feelings of haji.
Audition is a film with various layers to it, which can appeal to fans of various genres. The horrific and incredibly graphic torture scenes would make even the most desensitized viewer cringe, and the questions related to the reality of the film are on par with those of David Lynch. However, once one understands the cultural aspects of Japan, one can truly see how the film acts as a sort of social commentary.
Sources
De Mente, Boyé Lafayette. The Japanese Have a Word for It. Chicago, IL: Passport
Books, 1997.
Thompson, Kristin, and David Bordwell. Film History: An Introduction. New York,
NY: McGraw-Hill, 2003.
Mes, Tom. Midnight Eye review: Audition (1999). 20 March 2001. Accessed:
10 October 2004. http://www.midnighteye.com/reviews/audition.shtml>Internet Movie Database. Accessed: 10 October 2004. http://www.imdb.com>
