Audition begins as a quiet, thoughtful character study. You may be reminded of Ordinary People, the under-rated late-60’s drama Rachel, Rachel, even a serious variation on Sleepless in Seattle. Each with its story of someone trying to make a connection.
It ends with the worst violence most of us ever experienced. At several premieres, much of the audience walked out on this scene. It would be a shame if people experienced Audition only as a schlocky exploitation movie. Or if it angered viewers, unable to accept this much violence—calling it “unjustified,” for
example. In condemning the movie they would be missing
the many powerful themes that Audition explores. Less violent themes but equally ainful. Only the lonely know.
The day after I watched Audition, a suburban man shot and killed three women in a health club. His blog was on the Internet by suppertime; full of loneliness, loneliness fermenting to intense
pain; pain and hatred. Anyone with any imagination can free-associate; think of movies, novels, news stories, songs, even episodes of TV shows sharing these same themes.
The excellent recent drama Little Children; The quiet horror of
child-molester Ronnie’s disastrous blind date. Taxi Driver. Play Misty for Me. Eleanor Rigby with its unanswered question; “All the lonely people/Where do they all come from?”
Okay. What are these major themes overshadowed by the violence to come? First of all: When two needy people do find each other, how will they cope with the baggage the other one carries?
What has this new person been doing till now to survive their loneliness? For many, it’s a scary question. We want to ask, but desperately fear the answer. To me, this question of baggage is such a universal one that it continues to fascinate us; intrigue us,
mystify us, frighten us.
A basic plot summary is overdue. Okay. The story seems straightforward enough…at least at first. You watch Aoyama lose his young wife to illness. Clearly the marriage was happy, and the couple had been good parents to their young son, Shikehiko.
Seven years pass. Shikehiko is now a teenager, shy, good- hearted, making the adjustment. Watching his son grow increasingly independent, Aoyama focuses on his own loneliness. He tells Yoshikawa, his buddy at work, that he feels too old to re-enter the dating scene.
Yoshikawa’s plan is simple but ingenious. The two men can stage an audition for a TV-movie; both are executives for a major TV network. Later on they’ll tell the women about financial problems; that the movie probably will never be produced. But Aoyama will get an “accidental” opportunity to meet an attractive, talented young woman.
Aoyama feels guilty about the deception. But loneliness can make you do things you don’t feel right about. His first job; narrow down several dozen resumes to 30.
This scene reveals much more than it appears. I may be examining it under a microscope, but I feel this is warranted. One resume makes a deep impression. The woman’s name is Asami. Her resume reveals sadness, a willingness to experience disappointment and still make a new start, much vulnerability, sensitivity, and a strong hint of something else which attracts him: neediness.
But be fair. He is not searching so much for someone in need of him as someone able to identify with the pain he has experienced. Later on, he will understand more about the power he holds by simply being a man and a TV producer. For the moment, he is swept up in the possibility of his first romance in years.
In Asami, he senses a woman able to see past money, power and status. Someone with a life shaped by dreams and deep disappointment; the way he sees himself. He respects Asami’s awareness and courage.
Is his view of Asami more his own projection than the person she really is? Probably. One way the movie hooks us; its use of sad, beautiful music as Aoyama finds Asami’s resume and devours it. Like Aoyama, we want his projection to be true.
The women who come are poised, attractive, confident, but ooze a superficial quality, almost emptiness. By the time Asami shows up, Aoyama is seeing what he wants to see.
Asami waiting her turn
Two themes. First, Aoyama is moving ahead too fast. Second, he is missing some warning signs, some small, some real creepy.
Many of us know how he feels. You avoid making The Ten Worst First Date Turn-offs; things go according to plan. Aoyama phones Asami, identifying himself as “Producer Aoyama.” (To avoid being too informal, or to underline his status?) Whichever, he makes a date and is delighted.
Moments later, Yoshikawa calls, telling him that none of Asami’s references check out. We tell ourselves that Yoshikawa is a cynic, perhaps jealous. But we get a glimpse of something that Aoyama doesn’t.
Asami’s apartment. A telephone lies on the floor; it appears to dominate the room. She looks like she is camped out next to her phone, sleeping near it, like a lost hiker in sub-zero weather, whose only lifeline is a tiny campfire she must protect at all costs.
A large cloth sack lies close by, on the floor. When the phone rings (not a state-of-the-art buzz or tacky melody, but a loud, old-fashioned ring)…we watch the bag jump.
Secrets Aoyama does not know
And yet the dates go the way we hoped. Asami has a brief, fairly convincing explanation about her (dead end) references—she never stammers, or freezes. The music changes again; it actually may remind you of the romantic 60’s movie A Man and a Woman. When Aoyama tells her the movie has been put on hold, Asami takes the news in stride; no signs of irrational anger. She says she is still glad they met.
Aoyama’s personal tragedy helps him to sympathize with the
disappointments in Asami’s life.
Although Aoyama’s plan to propose marriage to Asami seems too scripted, not spontaneous enough, we don’t fault him much—we may be more like him than we admit. He takes her to a seaside resort, cold, formal, yet beautiful too.
Nothing comes without a price. Love, one of life’s treasures, comes with an especially high price. Aoyama abruptly finds his scripting won’t change reality.
Asami takes off all her clothes, gets into bed, asks him to look at her. One of her thighs has deep scars; she tells him they are from serious burns she got in childhood. Quietly, she says to him, “Love me, only. Only me.” In an indirect way, she refers to “others” who failed to keep promises to her.
You may remember the old thriller Play Misty for Me. How the insane Evelyn (Jessica Walter) twists an interpretation in a line of poetry from Edgar Allan Poe’s beautiful Annabelle Lee
“And this maiden/she lived with no other thought/than to love, and be loved by me.”
into a death threat.
The same themes…what kind of baggage she carries, what has it done to her. The injury that ended her dreams of dancing, possible physical abuse, emotional abuse…who knows what else. All part of her. Can she look at the man who loves her now, and not see all the faces of those who’ve hurt her? Aoyama is ready to take the whole risk. He gets into bed; they make love.
It’s here that Audition leaves Ordinary People territory and heads into horror-movie land. Aoyama begins to leave his conventional world behind, forced into wilderness better left to Bruce Willis or Tom Cruise. Dazed, he wakes to a phone call telling him Asami has checked out. He realizes he has never even known
her address.
Already he knows that most of her resume only yields dead ends. But other names she mentioned lead him to strange
places. A ballet academy, now shut down, lights turned off. A man plays the piano, his smile mean, borderline-sinister. Suggestions that he was the one who scarred Asami. He tells Aoyama, “Go home.”
Shaken, Aoyama returns to the safety of his house, and seeks refuge in whiskey. His past, secure world has suddenly vaporized. He re-lives that first date with Asami.
He had asked about her family…and had gotten bland,
reassuring answers. This time, her words are danger signs:
her parents divorced, forcing her to live with an uncle and aunt
who abused her physically. Ballet became her only salvation.
A weird sex fantasy. But more terrifying—Aoyama finds himself on the floor of Asami’s apartment…next to the sack. You need to see this for yourself.
Worse is to come. Aoyama on his apartment floor, paralyzed. In the hallway, his dog lies dead. Asami comes in, dressed in black leather. She tells Aoyama he is paralyzed but fully able to feel pain. She begin to torture him. Never have we seen her face so alive.
In the midst of all this, we might be asking, “But why him? He’s been such a nice guy.” The obvious answer (not that there aren’t more)—we want to believe we are like Aoyama.
Of course, there are people who frankly admit, “I’m just looking for pussy (or cock).”
But those people are the exceptions. We want to think we’re good, decent people, and seeing Aoyama get tortured, it hits us that much harder.
Again, many walked out on this scene. Worse, Asami hints that she knows Aoyama’s son will be home soon—and he’s next.
Aoyama is already badly injured when he suddenly wakes—back in the hotel bed with Asami. She sleeps peacefully, her face beautiful. Aoyama first looks to see if his injuries are real. He sees none…but still un-nerved, stumbles into the bathroom to splash his face.
Suddenly Asami stands behind him, asking if he is all right. A subtle difference, an Asami you haven’t seen before. Not the monster in black leather, not the rather fragile woman he dated. But a real adult, with real feelings.
She tells him she will answer his proposal; “I accept.” He’s so devastated he literally doesn’t know what she’s talking about (marriage).
“It’s like a dream. I’m so happy,” she says. But possibly, something in him has abruptly changed. A wall between them.
Back to the torture scene. (The movie never explains these transitions.) Aoyama’s son walks in; Asami does her best to cripple him. He runs. I won’t ruin the ending.
One viewer’s bizarre, yet strangely convincing take on Audition:
Except for the scene where Aoyama wakes up with Asami and looks in panic to see if he’s injured; everything else following the sex scene was his dream, including all the torture. In other words, the scenes where he wakes up and walks into the bathroom were the exceptions, the only scenes not part of his dream. Try to splice that together in your mind.
But in the larger picture, exactly what(and when) is a dream is not what counts. What counts is what we all know…that people got hurt in the past, and may hurt someone else, in proportion to that hurt. And we may not see far enough into someone we think we love.
Think of the Elton John song, Someone Saved My life Tonight; that bleak snapshot of living with the “princess perched on her electric chair.” No one wants to be the heartless one, the one who
abandons someone who loves them. But how painful will it be
to stay?
Audition crystallizes that ultimate nightmare, the absolute worst outcome. We sit devastated, asking ourselves who the real Asami was. The subdued, mysterious woman during the dates? The grinning serial killer in black leather? Or perhaps the woman with the kind voice and face who asks Aoyama if he is all right, as he stares in the mirror trying to forget his nightmare? We just don’t know.
The real Asami…or possibly only a bad dream
Audition’s incredible power lies in what we do know; that so many traumatized children grow up, eventually find someone to love them.
Only the one who loves them may find they can’t be fixed. Some will find a path out of the pain that cut them so deeply. Plenty will not. You say to yourself, my heart is a good heart…like Aoyama’s.
But who have you given your heart to?
That is the question that terrifies. Forget the question of what is a dream, and what was not. The real terror, either way, is looking deep into someone else’s heart.