Cinema
Audition
オーディション
Takashi Miike · 1999
Synopsis
Aoyama, a producer widowed for seven years, lives with his teenage son, who urges him to remarry. His friend Yoshikawa, a film producer, suggests a way: set up a fake audition for a series that will never be shot, and watch the candidates file past. Aoyama becomes attached to one of them, Asami, a calm young woman whom injuries have deprived of classical dance, according to the British Film Institute. He sees her again and begins a relationship with her, without revealing the deception to her, according to Offi.
Context
The material comes from a book by Murakami Ryū published in 1997, adapted by Tengan Daisuke. The company Omega Project, which was looking for a new horror hit, bought the rights; the shoot, in Tokyo, lasted three weeks. The film was shown at the Vancouver festival on 2 October 1999, in a programme of Japanese horror. At Rotterdam, in 2000, many spectators left the hall and an elderly woman shouted at the director “You are sick!”, according to an interview published in London in 2024. In Japan, it was released only on 3 March 2000, in small cinemas.
Who it is for
Nearly two hours, at first slow and domestic, then of a gruelling violence in the final part.
Prizes and reception
FIPRESCI International Critics' Prize at the Rotterdam festival in 2000, it brought its author recognition outside Japan.