For much of its running time, Audition doesn't even feel like a horror film. It starts almost like a gentle romantic comedy with a middle-aged widower named Aoyama (Tetsu Sawaki) goaded into agreeing with a film producer pal's scheme to find him a new wife by holding fake movie auditions. As things develop, their plan seems more and more dodgy but nothing can prepare them for the final outcome. Delicate ex-ballerina Asami (Eihi Shiina) seems the most likely candidate for Aoyama, but her references don't check out, and the audience is tipped off early by seeing her home life: alone in an empty apartment with a mysterious sack. A sack that occasionally groans and moves.
Made by the ridiculously prolific Takashi Miike (who also made a TV miniseries, two TV movies and three other feature films in the same year) it's a film best approached with little foreknowledge. It inspired lesser film-makers to make plenty of violent, empty gestures of movies. But Miike has a message within Asami's madness, without which the film wouldn't hit as hard as it does. The final minutes are as unbearable as film can get.
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