#33 - Audition

Ôdishon (1999)
Moderately Trashy
Directed by: Takashi Miike. Written by: Daisuke Tengan, based on the novel by Ryu Murakami.

Plot: A widower (Ryo Ishibashi) finally concedes to start dating again and sets up a fake audition for a movie. Through this he meets a charming young woman (Eihi Shiina) and they start going out together. Little does he know that she is extremely disturbed. Hilarity ensues.

Review: This is another one of those kind of depressing movies. I mean, it starts out okay but by the end of the movie you’re just wondering who the hell came up with this and why.

It’s a little slow getting going but the whole film has a very dreamlike quality, drifting along and getting progressively weirder. And it’s all got that sort of low-fi, semi-amateur look, the film quality, like it was shot on digital or something. I’m not sure whether it was shot on dig or not, bug I’ve noticed that quality in a lot of Asian horror flicks. I mean, it’s extremely well done, that’s not it, it’s just sort of weirdly unpolished looking or something. I don’t know what it is but it always catches my attention.

Anyway, this film is not strictly a horror movie - it is probably best described as a drama, it just borrows some elements from the horror genre in its skewing of reality and un-reality, making for many bizarre scenes. Also I guess some of the subject matter is vaguely horror related.

For example, the woman keeps a tongue-less guy in a bag in her apartment and feeds him her own vomit. That was pretty fucked up…

I guess this movie was more fucked up than anything, and that’s sort of where I was aiming with my initial comment on the person who came up with this. Seriously. People shouldn’t think about this shit.

But it’s in my head now too… huh.

Anyway, the movie culminates in an infamous torture scene, and I spent pretty much the last half hour of the movie curled up in a chair hiding, mostly because I was expecting something to jump up on the screen and make a loud noise. It didn’t, thank God, but it’s always good to be prepared. It took a while to come down off of it, too. I guess I was so tense during the last little bit it took my brain a long time to relax. It’s weird but cool.

Yeah, anyway, this is a pretty stellar recommendation, eh? No, it’s a good movie, it’s just sort of slow and sort of disturbing. Fuck, apparently I was not in the mood for writing at this time. These last two reviews really sucked ass. Ah well. I guess I'll just keep movin along.

Favourite Part: I can’t remember why, but this guy is telling the main guy the story of this murder. He’s talking about how the victim had been chopped up into many, many pieces and strewn around a bar or something. When police put all the pieces back together, there was an extra tongue and three extra fingers. That grossed me out a whole lot.

Other versions: None.

Sequels: None.

Click here to read my original review (July 2nd, 2008).

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