Week 200 - Audition (1999)

Reviews / Author Comments due: Long Ago
Position on TimeOut list: 18
More Info: Wikipedia, IMDB
DVD: Link

TRAILER:

Audition - Will's Review

This isn't the first time I've seen Audition, but I'm Damned if I remembered more than 10 minutes of it, so for all intents and purposes I went in cold on this one.

After his young adult son suggest it's time he remarries, widower Shigeharu enlists the help of a film producer friend to hold a fake Audition for a non existent roll, so that he may find a woman he wishes to date. He becomes immediately infatuated with one woman in particular (Asami) and pursues her.

Asami is receptive to Shingeharu's advances, but this being a horror movie, it's no spoiler to tell you that not everything goes smoothly, and that someone isn't what they appear.

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.