He longs for companionship but is weary of traditional dating practices. He longs to find a companion who ticks all the right boxes. His friend suggests an ingenious way of finding the woman of his dreams — a fake audition for a nonexistent movie where Aoyama can meet women trying out for a role.
This is where Aoyama meets and starts feeling attached to Asami, a young girl of 24 who looks like a perfect submissive, quiet, and attractive foil for him. As he starts spending more time with her getting to know her better, he gets more smitten and decides to pursue her, even if the references on her resume all turn out to be dead ends. Eventually, they go to spend time in a seaside resort and after a night together, Aoyama wakes up to find her gone.
As Aoyama tries to reach her by visiting several places associated with Asami, he learns troubling details about her. Eventually, Aoyama gets back home, drinks from the decanter which was laced with chemicals, and loses consciousness. When he comes to, he is injected by a paralytic by Asami, who then proceeds to torture him violently, employing a large number of needles and a wire saw.
The movie ends with a dying Asami whispering to words of love. The transition period quickly disseminates essential facts about Asami that point to a disturbed past full of violence and sexual torture. In a matter of a few minutes, using surreal hallucinations and morbid scenes, Miike establishes that Asami is not what she seems and it is virtually impossible to know and gauge people correctly, no matter how close you might get to them.
The switch to the extremely violent, graphic ending is so sudden and jarring that the audience might be forced to feel uncomfortable and even sick. His consciousness and reality is then in question from this point forward in the story. Does he really go in search for Asami where he discovers secrets from her past? Or is Aoyama in a drug induced stupor in his apartment all along, listening to Asami describe her past and motive for the metal wire saw action to come?
And what is the deal with the recurring bag sound? How is it even possible for Aoyama to comprehend exactly what that sound relates to, especially having never entered her apartment. One could even say that this sequence is necessary to the film solely for that purpose. Miike leaves the questions open ended and up for interpretation. Some have even questioned whether or not the sequence is nothing more than a sequence of scenes juxtaposed for the mere sake of comprehending the film.
Although this is purely speculation , it does seem like a decent way to write, or direct, yourself out of a bizarre corner. So I went WAY over the word count so I decided to stop it here but more detail could be added to each of these if need be, as well as any other theories anyone out there has.
Also, I feel like there needs to be a clip or something here but because there are so many different ways of looking at the "dream sequence" and they're kind of long clips I didn't know which one s to put up. Tip: To turn text into a link, highlight the text, then click on a page or file from the list above.
This all shows the incongruence of the actual desires of a person and what is socially accepted and expected. During the climactic torture, Asami states that they make auditions just to fail the girls and then have sex with them.
Her assumption is very precise. For Shigeharu, her resume was most appealing because she had the trauma of losing ballet. She seemed so fragile, broken, and in need of male support, that he could easily feel superior.
By comparison, the other women were too self-assured and confident, therefore too intimidating. It was another middle-aged male, who I assume was the manager of the company Asami said she had worked for, and who had gone missing a year ago. His body is mutilated, and she keeps him more like a pet. I am not sure if this is what the director meant in this scene, but I saw is as an extreme gender reversal — a perverse version of a male housewife.
Japan is traditionally a male dominated society. This movie could be seen as an extreme outcry against this subjugation of women. Considering its vivid scenes of imagined horror, it would not normally be presented in any feminist movement festivals. Nevertheless, I could see its appeal if you can get beyond the disturbing parts. But the question that begs answering is does it go too far? Skip to content.
Perfectly creepy visuals. Shigeharu comes back home, all torn up about his loss, but Asami is waiting for him there, and it does not lead to a happy ending… Finding the ideal woman.
His friend glares at them with disgust: Awful girls. No class and stuck up. Stupid as well. Where are all the good girls? Women as objects in the audition. Author Recent Posts. Agne Serpytyte. As a major in Asian studies and cinephile, I combined my passion for Asian cultures and film into the creation of my blog. I write reviews about Asian film and Film festivals, as well as interview movie industry professionals.
Latest posts by Agne Serpytyte see all. Raise the Red Lantern.
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