Audition
(Odishon), directed by Takashi Miike and based on a novel
by Ryu Murakami, is a film that may so shock viewers interested
in kinky sex to abandon any thought of experimenting with
sadomasochism. The story centers on Shigeharu Aoyama (played
by Ryo Ishibashi), whose wife dies while his only child, a
son, is nine years old. Thereafter, he builds a successful
video production company while employing the services of a
housekeeper at home. One day seven years later his sixteen-year-old
son Shigehiko (played by Tetsu Sawaki) suggests that he should
remarry. When he expresses a desire to take on a wife with
his drinking buddy Yasuhisa Yoshikawa (played by Jun Kunimura),
he has no idea how to find "Ms. Right." Yoshikawa,
however, thinks up a clever ploy. The two will hold thirty
phony auditions for a part in a movie so that Aoyama can screen
possible wives. Among the various applications, that of Asami
Tamazaki (played by Eihi Shiina) fascinates Aoyama because
she has evidently overcome philosophically the fact that an
injury ended her hopes for a career as a ballerina after twelve
years of training. However, Yoshikawa cautions Aoyama about
her, since a background check on her comes up empty. Nevertheless,
Aoyama has sex with Asami one weekend; then she disappears.
While trying to track her down, he learns that the owner of
a bar where she claims to have worked was murdered one year
earlier and then mutilated, but extra fingers and an ear were
found along with the body parts. Aoyama also encounters a
strange man playing a piano who was once Asami’s dance
teacher, who tells him to go home. Still obsessed with his
love for Asami, Aoyama later finds her and invites her to
his apartment. Asami then uses a chemical to paralyze Aoyama;
while unable to move, she proceeds to apply acupuncture needs
in the most painful places imaginable and to cut off one of
his feet. While trying to cut off the other foot, Shigehiko
comes into the apartment unexpectedly, stops Asami, and calls
for an ambulance for his father. During the final torture
scene, there are many flashbacks, including a sexual experience
with Aoyama’s secretary, Asami’s loss of dancing
ability due to torture inflicted by her ballet teacher, and
a footless slave that she keeps in a bag and feeds milk in
a dog’s dish. Insofar as the film is trying to tell us
that adult sadomasochists have been abused as children, the
point gets across far too brutally. Although the film’s
subtext critiques male chauvinists in Japan for seeking subservient
wives, the message is lost due to a total lack of subtlety.
MH
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