Review of Audition

Introduction

You can read the basic plot of this film in the details above, and I`m not going to say any more about it in this introduction. To enable yourself to try and get the most out of this film, you should try and avoid reading anything about it before you watch it, and don`t read the back cover of the DVD if you can help it!

You probably shouldn`t read much of this review unless you`ve seen the film, as whilst there aren`t any specific spoilers, it`s very hard to talk about the film without hinting at what goes on. So in a slightly odd move, I`m going to sum up the disc quality very briefly here. The picture is rather grainy and not very good, the sound is dull and flat and there are few extras. This is really only worth a rental on technical grounds.

Feel free to read on to find out more about the film (and the disc), but if you want to remain in the dark until you`ve had a chance to watch it for yourself, then you should proceed no further. The choice is yours.

Video

Right, let`s get this bit out of the way. If you`ve ever read anything about this film, or a friend has recommended it to you, then chances are you`ll have heard about a certain scene. If you`re expecting the whole film to be like this, then you will be in for a big let down. The "certain scene" is literally just one scene and if it wasn`t for the fact that you had to read the subtitles to find out what`s going on, you could probably close your eyes for the rest of the film and not miss much visually.

Ok, on to the more technical points. We get a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer, but that`s where the good news stops. The transfer is one of the grainiest that I have ever seen, and it was enough to make me wonder whether this was an intentional effect. I don`t think that it was, but there was just so much of it.

The image is mostly free from other blemishes, but colours are rather muted (this perhaps was intentional) and the whole image is very dark (sometimes intentional, but surely not all of the time). The burnt-in subtitles sometimes wobble slightly on the screen, can be hard to read against light backgrounds, and are littered with errors.

Audio

A DD2.0 stereo Japanese track which is rather flat and dull. There are one or two nice sound effects to look out for, but apart from that there`s nothing exciting for your ears unless you like background noise and hiss.

Features

A brief selection of extras. The biggest of these is the 10 minute interview with director Miike Takashi, where he talks briefly about various aspects of the film. The interview is subtitled, and is interspersed with the questions appearing on screen.

There are also brief filmographies which won`t mean much unless you are really into Japanese cinema, Chris Campion`s film notes, and a selection of trailers for this film and for other Tartan DVDs.

Conclusion

Audition is one of those films that got hyped up and generated a following based on just one scene. This inevitably means that you will be sitting through the rest of the film just waiting for the inevitable to happen. And that`s the real problem with the film.

Overall, the film is very slow paced, but this does work to its advantage and just about manages to build up a bit of atmosphere and tension. But then it almost turns into a completely different film as we move onto "that scene" and we start to mess around with silly dream sequences (didn`t people learn from Dallas that dream sequences are a bad idea?)

And the ending really annoyed me. It just seemed such a waste after putting so much effort in to the preceding scenes. Sitting through nearly 2 hours of slow paced film and "that scene" just to be presented with that ending is an incredibly frustrating experience.

Another quick summary of the technical aspects of the disc - the picture is rather grainy and dark, the sound is dull and flat and there are few extras. This is really only worth a rental on technical grounds, but you might also want to rent it to see what the fuss is about. I can`t imagine that you`d want to buy it though.