Audition

 Just in case you're not aware of Takashi Miike's Audition: go watch it now. It's best to go in knowing as little as possible about it... other than the fact that it might be best to avoid it if you're not up for a little grisly mayhem.

 The film follows Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi), a middle-aged widower and successful businessman who decides it's time to remarry. Yoshikawa (Jun Kunimura), a friend who works in the film industry suggests that the best way to meet and covertly woo prospective candidates is to hold an audition; he holds the right for a made-for-TV drama, and suggests that Aoyama sits in with him during the audition process; Aoyama, to his eternal shame, accepts enthusiastically.

 Early on in the process, Aoyama is impressed by one of the applicants, Asami Yamazaki (Eihi Shiina), whose introductory essay strikes him as unusually touching and mature (it's pretty morbid, but hey). He pretty ignores all the other hopefuls, and when he finally interviews Yamazaki, he basically blurts out some compliments - it's an uncomfortable scene, but she seems to take it well.

 From there, they start dating. As it turns out Yamazaki wasn't particularly interested in landing the role, and seems to genuinely like Aoyama. And for his part Aoyama, despite agreeing to the audition and some horrible sentiments expressed during the search (he compares finding Mrs. Right to getting a new car, for example), is revealed to really be searching for an actual connection. It doesn't excuse him, but this is probably the best possible result for the whole creepy, abusive audition scheme. 

 Except that there are warning flags all over the place. His buddy and partner in audition crime Yoshikawa just doesn't like Yamazaki, and can't follow up on any of the references on her resume. Oh, and we also get a few inserts of Yamazaki at home, motionless, waiting for the phone to ring, while a cloth sack in the background writhes. This is not going to end well.

 Yamazaki disappears while she and Aoyama take a weekend break at the coast, which takes us into the investigation phase of the film as Aoyama starts following up on what little he knows of his love interest. The search leads him to some pretty dark places, as the film's tone veers from light-hearted comedy to more standard Miike territory. By which I mean: we get a shot of a severed tongue flopping around in the floor.

 By the end we reach a grand guignol climax which is what the movie is best known for, and despite losing its luster to the casual violence of the causal violence we've been subjected to in mainstream entertainment within the last decade (not to mention the French New Extremity), it's still powerful, cruel, and shocking. Not the least because of everything that came before.

 I'd also like to highlight the fever dream that comes before that scene, which is creepy, illuminating and hilarious in equal parts (this may be the only time we'll ever see suspense being generated from a man trying to avoid a blowjob).

 It's hard to talk about Audition without unduly spoiling it or saying anything that hasn't been said a hundred times before. I think the most important thing, though, is that this is a legitimately great movie, and not just in the 'cult' sense that it's crazy and shocking. There'd be nothing wrong with that, obviously, but this movie doesn't need those qualifiers; The third act craziness is integral to the film, and it only adds to its tragicomic energy, all-pervading sadness, and surprisingly sophisticated themes.

 The script (by Daisuke Tengan, based on a novel by Ryu Murakami) takes its time and patiently maps out Aoyama's character through his actions. It has a subtlety and complexity that leaves more modern genre exercises that touch upon similar themes (like, oh, I don't know, Barbarian or Promising Young Woman) looking simplistic and too on-the-nose.

 This is a story about a man who uses predatory tactics for... well, not the right reasons, nothing could justify that - but there's nuance to his character and the script smartly underlines his humanity. It strikes a good balance between condemning his actions and personality (a key late scene shows some truly callous behaviour at a past conquest) and making us cringe at the consequences; The shitstorm that he unleashes is both provoked, deserved, and out of all proportion. Meanwhile Yamazaki ends up being a brilliant movie monster (kiri kiri kiri) that is also a broken, tragic figure who operates under mistaken assumptions and commits several unforgiveable acts - hardly a feminist avenging angel.

 Technically, it's unimpeachable. Director Takashi Miike and his usual collaborators make the first half of the story - a slow burn drama/comedy - endearing and very, very funny, with editor Yasushi Shimamura being a key player; Some short, slightly glitchy editing schemes, interspersed with more traditional, cinematic long takes, give the story a lot of energy, as well as becoming important later when missing chunks of  those scenes come back to give characters more context. It meshes nicely with some of Miike's non-traditional choice of shots like having characters in a conversation alternately talk straight to the camera.

 By the time wire saws and acupuncture needles come up, we're completely invested in the story. That's the key ingredient in the ending's uncanny intensity, aside from Miike's obvious directorial chops. Audition is often lumped in with J-Horror and... well, it's understandable - especially as it was produced as a follow-up to the seminal The Ring by some of the same companies - but it's more of a genre outlier, along with Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Cure. Any way you slice it (or pierce with acupuncture needles) though, it fully deserves its classic status.