Audition (1999)
(Odishon)
Country: JAP/SK
Technical: Eastman Kodak 115m
Director: Takashi Miike
Cast: Ryô Ishibashi, Eihi Shiina, Tetsu Sawaki, Jun Kunimura
Synopsis:
A widower selects a new bride from among applicants for a part in the film his company is producing. She is, however, not the submissive paragon she seems.
Review:
A film which plays on Japanese male guilt and insecurities (their famed predilection for subservient women, cavalier attitude to the opposite sex and fear of being left alone) and at the same time confounds viewer expectations: an Ang Lee-type light comedy turns into unsettling David Lynch-style portents of doom and full-blown horror. The iconography of national blockbuster Ring is also plundered for ideas (a phone rings loudly; long hair half covers the girl's face; the orgy of vengeance has as its root cause some abuse in her past.) It all gets a bit much in the end, but attains some chillingly effective lurches whose power stems from that Japanese flair for the uncanny.
(Odishon)
Country: JAP/SK
Technical: Eastman Kodak 115m
Director: Takashi Miike
Cast: Ryô Ishibashi, Eihi Shiina, Tetsu Sawaki, Jun Kunimura
Synopsis:
A widower selects a new bride from among applicants for a part in the film his company is producing. She is, however, not the submissive paragon she seems.
Review:
A film which plays on Japanese male guilt and insecurities (their famed predilection for subservient women, cavalier attitude to the opposite sex and fear of being left alone) and at the same time confounds viewer expectations: an Ang Lee-type light comedy turns into unsettling David Lynch-style portents of doom and full-blown horror. The iconography of national blockbuster Ring is also plundered for ideas (a phone rings loudly; long hair half covers the girl's face; the orgy of vengeance has as its root cause some abuse in her past.) It all gets a bit much in the end, but attains some chillingly effective lurches whose power stems from that Japanese flair for the uncanny.
(Odishon)
Country: JAP/SK
Technical: Eastman Kodak 115m
Director: Takashi Miike
Cast: Ryô Ishibashi, Eihi Shiina, Tetsu Sawaki, Jun Kunimura
Synopsis:
A widower selects a new bride from among applicants for a part in the film his company is producing. She is, however, not the submissive paragon she seems.
Review:
A film which plays on Japanese male guilt and insecurities (their famed predilection for subservient women, cavalier attitude to the opposite sex and fear of being left alone) and at the same time confounds viewer expectations: an Ang Lee-type light comedy turns into unsettling David Lynch-style portents of doom and full-blown horror. The iconography of national blockbuster Ring is also plundered for ideas (a phone rings loudly; long hair half covers the girl's face; the orgy of vengeance has as its root cause some abuse in her past.) It all gets a bit much in the end, but attains some chillingly effective lurches whose power stems from that Japanese flair for the uncanny.