This film was screened at the 2000 Seattle International Film Festival.

AUDITION

reviewed by Mattro

Here we have a creature of a very different sort. I have never seen a Japanese film like Audition (directed by Takashi Miike). The film starts out lulling you into a false sense of tranquility. Ryo Ishibashi plays a widowed father raising his twelve year old son alone. His boy, who is just discovering the wonder of girls, innocently inquires as to why his father hasn't found a new wife and opts instead for loneliness. These family scenes play like a Japanese version of "Courtship of Eddie's Father". Good natured. The audience is content.

The Ishibashi character, with the help of a business client, sets up an audition session with dozens of young ladies. They think they are going to be the heroine of a new movie. They're really auditioning to be the lonely father's next wife. Humor ensues. The audience is laughing.

Ishibashi is fascinated with one particular young woman, played by Miyuki Matsuda. She is innocent, beautiful and modest. They begin to date. He falls in love with her and is happier than we've seen him throughout the film. He takes her to an ocean guest house where he plans on proposing to her. They make love and when he wakes up later that evening she is gone. He doesn't know where to find her.

Needless to say, Ishibashi's character is distraught and begins a quest to find her based on the clues she gave him when they dated. While searching, he learns some very disturbing things about her. Without giving too much away, here the film turns 180 degrees away from good natured family comedy and enters ground I've only seen covered by David Lynch in "Lost Highway" and in the director's cut of Oliver Stone's "Natural Born Killers". You see, Matsuda's character is a hobbyist of sorts. Her hobby? Let's just say she isn't very nice to her lovers.

The last third of the film is surreal... the imagery often brutal. Here the audience is aghast and does not know whether to laugh, cry or (as many do) leave the theater in haste.

Audition is a very interestingly crafted film with excellent direction and acting. However, it is NOT for the weak stomached or faint of heart.