Miike Takashis View That Audition Is Not a Horror Film - Essay Example

Critically examine Miike Takashi’s view that Audition is not a horror film in the light of what you know about Japanese and Western horror conventions. Within the Western horror film industry, many names of famous directors come to mind: Wes Craven, George A. Romero, Dario Argento, and Tobe Hooper. Most of these directors had films in the 1970’s and 80’s that gained tremendous popularity for the hacker, slasher, zombie, blood and gore motifs. These movies contain many elements, but horror is always the main theme. What is horror? The Merriam Webster dictionary defines horror as: a painful, and intense fear, dread, or dismay; intense aversion or repugnance; the quality of inspiring horror: repulsive, horrible, or dismal quality or character. (559) Is horror the main theme of Audition (1999) which was directed by Takashi Miike? Miike doesn’t think so and actually feels that he should not be considered as a horror director, as defined by Western horror. Miike, a director from Japan, has been in the film industry for over a decade. He got his start in television and movies that went straight to video. He approaches his films, such as Audition, utilizing different methods than those that are considered standard within Western Horror conventions. How does Miike view Audition as being billed as a horror film? When discussing the film, Miike stated in an interview “I kind of wanted to promote the cliché of horror. I think that human beings are far more frightening than any horror film and I wanted to express that point. I was trying to make the story as real as possible. That way it becomes more frightening” (Japanorama series, 2002). He also stated in an interview from his movie Imprint (2005), part of a series on Showtime called Masters of Horror, “Among the horror fans overseas, films like Audition and Ichi the Killer have caused me to be misunderstood as someone who makes horror-like films.” He reiterated by saying that his films “…found their way abroad, through no intention of mine. Those works had created this false image of ‘Takashi Miike’”. Miike never states flat out that Audition is not a horror film, but clearly feels that he is not a horror director. Did Miike really portray this movie as a horror film? After viewing the film, there is nothing that stands out as horror, other than of course, when Asami mutilates Aoyama for not loving her and only her. The front cover and even the posters for this movie were very misleading, as they show Asami with the big hypodermic needle she uses to inject Aoyama’s tongue. That was not the focal point of the movie. Aoyama was looking for a wife, a suitable replacement, and after holding an “audition”, felt that Asami fit his description of the old fashioned wife he was looking for. She presented herself as demure and submissive. Traditional Western Horror films focus on the supernatural, psychological, and physical horrors experienced by the characters. Western Horror plots maintain the horror theme from the outset of the movie. Classic examples of supernatural horror are: Romero’s zombie films [Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978), Day of the Dead (1985), Land of the Dead (2005), and Diary of the Dead (2007)], The Exorcist (1973), Poltergeist (1982), and Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). Psychological horror films include: Last House on the Left (1972), and Silence of the Lambs (1991). Physical horror films include: Halloween (1978), Friday the 13th (1980), Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). Japanese horror, or J-Horror, utilizes many elements of Western horror, but is reputedly known for focusing more on psychological horror. A technique that is used in both J-Horror and Western horror is a sense of anticipation or dramatic build-up. J-Horror also uses many common themes such as ghosts, but many contain references to Japanese folk religion or folklore. Many of the well known J-Horror films have crossed over or have been remade for Western audiences, including Ringu/The Ring (1998, 2002), Gin Gwai/The Eye (2002, 2008), Chakushin Ari/One Missed Call (2004, 2008), and Ju-On/The Grudge (2002, 2003). How does Audition fit into the scheme of Western Horror? The analysis of each type of Western horror will be utilized to determine whether Audition can be considered to be considered Western Horror, or even J-Horror. Throughout the film, nothing horror-like happens for the first hour or so. You are viewing a love story, with a man seeking a new wife. Then within the last 20-30 minutes of the film, actions that can be construed as horror occur. For a true horror film, the audience would have been expecting these actions to happen much earlier in the film, and to be more prevalent. Aoyama is drugged and physically mutilated by Asami, the woman with whom he has fallen in love. This theme was not maintained for the entirety of the film, leaving the viewer to question why the mutilation scenes were left for the last 20 – 30 minutes. Can this film be categorized under physical horror? Not truly. Asami did not spend the entire movie hacking and slashing random people, nor did she use this as a self-defense against someone else. What she does to Aoyama is more fitting to a crime or a crime committed out of passion, not a horror scene, although the scenes are graphic in nature. She cuts off his feet so that he can’t ever leave her, as she feels that he has not loved only her, due to Aoyama having a son to love, coworkers he is amiable with, etc. This film does not show evidence of use of anything in the supernatural sense. His coworker, Yoshikawa, does have a bad feeling about Asami and voices his opinion, but it does not come from any supernatural aspect. Asami is not a ghost or a spectre, but flesh and blood whose life has been filled with abuse. This film shows some small part of psychological horror, but it is the psychological horror that Asami herself has endured during her abused life. Aoyama utilizes no psychological methods of harming Asami, or of making her love him. He stays true to his “nice guy” image, and falls in love with Asami as she is portraying herself to him. Asami hides behind her submissive and demure front, and misleads Aoyama. Why does she mislead him? In some ways, she may be trying to overcome the horrors of her life in starting a relationship with Aoyama, hoping to put those events behind her. She speaks minimally about these events to Aoyama, and it seems as if these subjects may even be considered as taboo to discuss. The only thing that can be said about the violence displayed at the end of the film is this: it was something that was added to prove how far Asami would go in her understanding of loving Aoyama, and in making him understand what was expected of him in the relationship. She was letting him know that he was to love no other and to never leave her. Asami and her abuse filled life taught her these methods, and although she appears to be trying to overcome her issues, in the end she is unable to succeed and repress the lessons she has learned in life. Can this movie even be tagged as a revenge film? In his article entitled “Japanese Horror Under Western Eyes: Social Class and Global Culture in Miike Takashi’s Audition” Steffen Hantke states, “Revenge drama, no matter if the avenger is male of female, is often constructed to place the audience in the position of the avenger (59).” He later states that “Audition manages to subvert this dictate of Japanese culture. Aoyama, though far from perfect, does nothing to deserve Asami’s ferocious violence. On the contrary, Miike goes to great lengths to present him as a well intentioned, decent man (59).” Another article by Ruth Goldberg entitled “The Nightmare of Romantic Passion in Three Classic Japanese Horror Films” briefly mentions Audition as “one of the films most directly responsible for the recent wave of interest in Japanese horror cinema, due in no small part to its powerful reworking of a previously established trope – that if the nightmare of romantic passion (29).” So how does Miike himself see his film and the audience reactions to ‘Audition’? During the interview in the special features of Audition, Miike had this to say: Probably you might say when making this film, it’s a movie where the story kind of self-destructs, it finishes with an incomplete ending…the way the people in the story are incomplete, so the film itself has to finish in a kind of broken down way, that’s what I was trying to do. So to that you, first you have to have a normal story starting out. Of a total 90 minute film, you spend the first 60 minutes, an hour, developing the normal story and at that point the audience on their own develop this sense of how the story is going to end. The film takes them to this place, different place altogether, in the final reel. And after they’ve gotten comfortable with the story, I think it takes about an hour for that comfort to set in, and then the story starts to change gears and the characters are affected by this, they themselves start to change, riding along with it. And so the audience feels kind of psychologically cheated, betrayed perhaps, that their understanding of the first hour of this film was undermined in the end, they feel cheated somehow. The film, Audition, when critically examined, does not appear to fit into Japanese or Western horror genres. Although Audition contains elements of psychological horror toward the end of the film, it does not maintain the theme of horror throughout its entirety. Miike has stated in many different interviews that he does not feel himself to be a horror director, but uses violence as a way to portray humans and the horrific things that people do to one another. He feels that he has been mislabeled as a horror director and by no means intended for any of his films to gain recognition among the Western audiences as horror. Works Cited: Goldberg, Ruth. “The Nightmare of Romantic Passion in Three Classic Japanese Horror Films.” (29) Hantke, Steffen. “Japanese Horror Under Western Eyes: Social Class and Global Culture in Miike Takashi’s ‘Audition’.” (59) “Horror.” Merriam-Websters Collegiate Dictionary. 10th ed. 1994. Japanorama: Episode 4: Yakuza. Interview with director Takashi Miike, Audition 1999. BBC Series 2002. Audition. Dir. Takashi Miike. Perfs. Ryo Ishibashi, Eihi Shiina. Lions Gate Films, 1999. Imprint. Dir. Takashi Miike. Perf. Youki Kudoh, Michie, Toshie Negishi, Billy Drago. Anchor Bay Entertainment, 2005. “Imprinting: The Making of Imprint – Featuring Interviews with Cast and Crew”. (supplementary material on DVD release of Imprint). 2005. DVD. Anchor Bay Entertainment, 2005. Director Interview. Director commentary, Final Reel. (supplementary material on DVD release of Audition). 1999. DVD. Lions Gate Films, 1999. Read More