the iron man audition

I got around to viewing Tetsuo: the Iron Man and Audition.

Tetsuo: the Iron Man (Shinya Tsukamoto, 1989) - 7/10

The back of the DVD cover states, "...a cinematic experience like you've never seen." I really don't know what to make from this film. Or I've never experienced Tsukamoto before, or any Lynch films which I read this movie is in the realm of. Which means I need to experience this movie again. As it stands, I'll give a rating of 7 for its absurd and unique film making style and narrative. Black and white visuals mixed with fast cuts and editing, and hypnotic imagery and sound.

Audition (Takashi Miike, 1999) - 7.5/10

With the exception of a severed head and foot using a wire, the grotesque nature of this film wasn't bad at all. Nothing too disturbing. The first half of the film moves a bit slow. The director Takashi Miike in his commentary even says he did that deliberately. We see the build up of the relationship between Aoyama (a middle-aged man who seeks to find another woman to marry a few years after the death of his wife) and Asami (a young woman who auditions for a fake movie audition set up by Aoyama). Could Asami be perfect and innocent as Aoyama wants to believe?
The second half of the film changes in atmosphere as we see the other side of Asami, a darker side. It brings a creepy feeling, not in the sense of monsters, ghosts or demons jumping out onto the screen.