Audition – Wire Cut Foot Scene
What could I possibly even say about this scene? Many things, actually. First of all, director Takashi Miike is a genius (people who correct me and tell me his name goes in the other order will get punched in the face), and Audition was many of us receiving our first exposure to this kind of horror.
We had seen interrogation scenes and torture scenes before, but Audition changed all that. Why? Because throughout most of the film, none of us saw this coming. You slowly come to realize the female character here is not right (the “bag scene” being a big indicator of this), but it all culminates at the end of the movie, when you realize that some really bad things are about to go down.
So, what goes down? Well, she slices off a guy’s foot using a piano wire. While that, in itself, would have worked marvellously at scarring the audience, the whole scene is taken that much further by the fact that she seems like to what she is doing. She seems to be taking a childish level of glee in the whole thing. Also, I’m not sure if you know how that works, but taking off a foot with a piano wire is a time consuming ordeal for all involved. Including the audience.
But man, it’s so damn good.