6. Audition
Adding
Audition to the list might seem like I'm breaking my own rules - after all, I said at the start that I wasn't including extreme Asian cinema. Audition certainly fits into that genre, but I am adding it here because the film is so completely unconventional. Starting out as a love story, it has gentle comedic elements. A bereaved husband looks for love but never finds it, until his son shakes up his thinking. A pal in the film business suggests he set up a fake audition process, in an attempt to screen prospective mates. Surprising himself, he falls for an ex-ballerina; his friend is bothered by her, but can't put his finger on why. Takashi Miike directs with intentional yet uncharacteristic restraint. The pace is slow. Love blossoms between the two but as the film approaches the final third, unpleasant revelations begin to pile up. What then follows is a sudden examination of obsession and dependence, very much from the sharp end. It turns out that the girl is a very damaged individual. Words cause lies. Pain can be trusted,' she reasons. After paralyzing him with an injection, she begins to insert acupuncture needles into his abdomen and under his eyes. But she's just warming up at this point. The part frozen in my mind is when she takes a wire saw to his foot. 'This wire can cut through meat and bone easily', she says. Casually flexing the wire around the ankle, she works the wire until the foot drops off; in a shot taken from outside the apartment, we see her lazily toss the appendage to one side, smacking it against the window we're looking through. 'Kiri kiri kiri kiri!' That's the quote you're most likely to remember - the mantra spoken as pain is inflicted. But I'd guess it's the foot removal that stays in people's minds the longest.