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Author Topic: Audition  (Read 919 times)

Bill Thompson

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Audition
« on: September 17, 2010, 08:54:48 AM »
*Mild Spoilers*

This is torture porn because it has an extended scene of gratuitous torture for the sake of shocking or entertaining the audience.  The fact that the characters are developed does not change this fact. 

It completely changes whether there is the existence of torture porn. Torture porn means, and has been applied to films where, the torture is mindless and doesn't serve any purpose other than to shock the audience. The torture in Audition isn't a lot, another prerequisite of torture porn, and it serves a definitive purpose. It is built to, it is given meaning, it is something that is a likely avenue to happen from about 25-30 minutes into the film.

The switch was abrupt, we are told weird things about her past and her present, but when we actually see the two of them interact, she comes off completely normal.  Shy, lonely, emotionally scared, but never aggressive, or violent, or psychopathic, certainly not "unhinged".  She seems to genuinely enjoy their time together and he never does anything to hurt her or betray her trust.  Hence when she suddenly goes Buffalo Bill on us, it seems extremely out of character.  My counter example would be Misery, where from scene one she truly seems more than a little deranged.

I fear for your relationships with women if you think she comes off as normal in their interactions. From the moment we see her in that waiting room she is played as a bit of a freak. Miike wants to toy with the audience so he misleads us with some moments of her being normal, but for the most part she is presented as being batshit crazy from the start. This only intensifies as her relationship with the man deepens. The fact that he doesn't do anything to hurt or betray her trust misses one thing, he never has her trust to begin with. Throughout the film we are also given hints as to the craziness of her character, from what other characters say, from when the main character starts looking for her, and from the way Miike films her. It was obvious to me from the word go that she was an unhinged and batshit crazy chick.

He begins a relationship with her based on a lie, so where is the trust. That is the most base reason for her actions at the end, there never was a movie, he lied to her to try and get a young trophy wife.

Heck, what makes you think she was ever unhinged Bill?  The movie hints that the whole thing may be inside his head.  Maybe its just some weird fantasy brought by a guilt complex over his dead wife. 

I answered the first part of this up top, but I do acknowledge the fantasy aspect. It can be interpreted that way, however even if you do that it's one where he has projected these things onto this girl and thus she is presented as batshit crazy from the start in this scenario as well. Either way I interpreted the film, and I wrestled with a few different interpretations, they all began and ended with her being crazy from the get go and there not being some sort of change of character, because you can't change what has already been shown to be crazy.