The New Rob Monroe

When cult filmmaker Takashi Miike released his adaptation of this Ryu Murakami novel it did not go unnoticed. There is not a list of “shocking” or “disturbing” films with a damn that does not include this cinematic nightmare. Its slow build, atmospheric creepiness and nausea-inducing climax has solidified its place as one of the greatest horror films of all time, even though 80% of the film could be mistaken for a romantic drama.

I have no doubt that the formula for this film’s success is the expert direction of Takashi Miike, who is capable of crafting a near perfect film in any genre, and the dark imagination of Ryu Murakami, whose short novel supplied the source material.

If asked, I would not hesitate a moment to declare Ryu Murakami my favorite writer of all time. The fragile transgression of Almost Transparent Blue and the post-punk apocalypse of Coin Locker Babies had a profound impact on me when I was younger. Eventually the rest of the world caught on (no doubt thanks to the other excellent writer who shares Ryu’s last name, Haruki Murakami) and more and more of his novels were translated and published. In the Miso Soup and Piercing, while not as ambitious as Murakami’s earlier works, they are still masterfully executed psychological thriller, impossible to put down. For obvious reasons, I was very excited to hear that Audition had been translated and published in England.

Unfortunately, it appears that Miike’s adaptation of the novel was far more than a simple translation. The novel is without a doubt, the weakest of Murakami’s translated works, loaded with flaws that Miike was wise enough to identify and remove from the narrative.

The story of Audition is much more suitable for film. It is a narrative dependent on foreshadowing and creating a sense of ambiguous unease in the viewer. This forshadowing is often extremely heavy-handed in the novel or non-existent. At one point the third-person narrator actually states that the character “had no idea of the horrors to come.” This appears extremely early in the novel, completely ruining the slow building tension, forcing the reader to immediately anticipate the twist ending. And when that ending comes it is handled with none of the ambiguity and shocking wonder of the film.

While fans of Ryu Murakami may find some interest in reading this novel, I would highly recommend Murakami’s other thrillers, specifically Piercing, to those unfamiliar with the author.