Critic's Grade: D+

What is it with movies and dreams these days? Why do directors and screenwriters insist on tossing us into a foray of images ranging from grotesque to mysterious, thoughtful to incoherent, all for the sake of making us feel so unbelievably confused and bewildered? I mean, come on: I'm still reeling from the gut-punch of David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive," and no, that crushing blow was not one of satisfaction or intrigue, but that of disgust and hatred for wasting two precious hours on something that offered no explanation, easy or difficult, to its series of misshapen events.

And once again, my faith in movies has been shaken terribly by the Japanese-made film "Audition," a complete mess of a movie that is disappointing only because of what could have possibly been a real surrealistic trip-out. I'm referring to the cavalcade of gory, decrepit imagery that permeates much of the film's second half, that which is so disturbing and toe-clenching, you'll be squirming in your chair, wincing at what you bear witness to. Sadly enough, this could very well be your reaction to the plot behind all of this, and that just makes the experience unpleasant for all the wrong reasons.

The movie's beginning poses some points of interest: we are introduced to Shigeharu Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi), a widower of seven years who lives with his teenage son, who wishes he would find some way of enjoying life ("You're beginning to look old. You should remarry," says his son during a dinnertime conversation). At first, the idea doesn't hold much promise for Aoyama, but he goes along with it, enlisting the help of a trusted friend in staging a fake movie role audition in order to meet various women, from which he will make a selection.

And then, WHAM! Love at first sight strikes him down when he meets Asami (Eihi Shiina), a young twentysomething who lives a simple life, and carries with her all of the qualities and admirable traits he is seeking. He eventually begins seeing her, dining with her, and the two become involved emotionally to the point where they spend a weekend together out of town at a resort hotel.

Up to this point, the movie has established some solid ground to keep our interests steady. We see there is a sinister side to Asami, from shots of her sitting in her apartment, on the floor, while a large canvas bag shuffles periodically behind her. The contact information and references given to Aoyama during the audition turns up illegitimate, but he doesn't care. He's in love, and he's about as blind as one man under the influence of this emotion could possibly be. The material in the first half isn't too terribly mysterious (I would have preferred we didn't know so much about Asami's darker side right off the bat), and some may be turned off by the slow pacing of the events. It did, however, succeed in at least keeping me wanting to know what lay ahead.

But then things go completely downhill (spoilers ahead) from the hotel room scene in which Asami gives herself to Aoyama... or does she? The scene automatically shifts to the next morning: Asami is gone, leaving no way for Aoyama to get in touch with her or locate her when he returns home. He becomes obsessed with finding her: he goes to the ballet school where she took lessons as a child, only to discover an old man who spouts a load of gibberish warnings that are laughable when they should be eerie. While this is going on, Asami has broken into his apartment for reasons unknown... he returns home, has a drink of a tainted beverage, and falls to the floor, but not before experiencing a series of hallucinations involving everything from a footless, fingerless, tongueless man whose only source of nutrition is Asami's vomit, and the brutal murder of the ballet teacher seen in the previous sequence.

Then, we shift back to the apartment, where Aoyama is lying on the floor, helpless, as a clinically psychotic Asami begins doing things to his body that make Charlie Manson look like a playground bully. Of course, all of this is cast into a shadow of doubt through an interrupting scene reverting back to the hotel room, leaving us to wonder, "Is it real, or just his nightmare?" This is never clarified, but what bothers me about this is not the lack of explanation, but the fact that it's all so completely ludicrous and disjointed. In watching the final sequences unfold, I kept getting the feeling that the movie was trying way to hard to masquerade as something powerful, when in reality, it was just plain out of touch with any measure of brilliance or effort.

To its credit, the movie is able to get the torture sequence right. The imagery and unsteady feel of these scenes is brilliant, and the acts of quiet violence and stomach-turning bodily harm and mutilation are effectively chilling as in-the-moment experiences. But throw them into the big picture, and they lose their impact, as you spend your time trying to decipher events that have no purpose or meaning. "Audition" replaces thoughtful intrigue with incoherence, and narrative with misplaced surrealism. I don't know if anyone else is sick of movies that twist reality to their advantage without the slightest inkling of intelligence, but I am. Really tired.

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