Audition - Lisa's Review

I became a Japanese horror fan 12 or 13 years ago and Audition was one of the first movies Japanese movies I watched.  I had watched a couple before this so was prepared for the odd style, which is just as well, as Audition is probably as odd as it comes.  From the off I'll say it.  I love this movie.  It's all kinds of strange, the words of an old rock song by a band called Crimson Glory sum it up quite succinctly... "Strange and beautiful... wicked and wonderful".  I'm deliberately not going to go into much detail on the story as it's a movie a lot of people won't have seen and they really should change that as it is well worth a watch.  It is also a movie where a lot is left to the viewers own interpretation.  There are quite a few interpretations of the movie to be found online, one of which I am most definitely on board with.  Again, it's not something anyone who hasn't seen the movie should read beforehand.  It's better to go into this movie with as little knowledge as possible.  I'll happily talk about my interpretation if any reader (are there any out there??) wants to know after having viewed the movie.

In a nutshell, the movie follows a widowed man Aoyama who is living in misery, missing his wife.  His son convinces him to try to find a new love and move on with his life.  Aoyama agrees and seeks the help of his close friend and movie director Yoshikawa to find a new wife.  Japan being quite the odd place, they decide to hold a fake casting for 'the part' of Aoyamas wife.  When a young woman called Asami shows up to audition for 'the part', Aoyama finds himself transfixed and drawn to her.  He knows there and then that she is the only woman for him.

To tell you any more would be wrong of me, so I'm leaving it there.  This may seem like an incredibly short review, but the less given away, the better.  The movie is wierd, I won't lie.  It isn't the easiest to follow.  It jumps about a lot.  You may find yourself scratching your head through most of it, but stay with it.  You may have to think a bit about it afterwards, but then I find that with all the best movies.  You certainly won't have seen anything like this before.  It's most definately either a love or hate and in this camp, it's most definately LOVE.