I’ve been at a loose end recently, so I took a friend’s advice and bunked down with a good book then watched a couple of films.

Okay, so I spread it out over a day or two. I read Connie Willis’ Bellwether (one of my favourite books) cover to cover yesterday before watching Takashi Miike’s Audition.

I first saw it about two years ago when Sci-Fi showed a series of Asian films late at night… they may have been the movies that make up the Tartan Asian Extreme collection but I really don’t remember.

Seven years after losing his wife to illness, Aoyama decides it’s time to remarry. But he’s middle-aged and can’t afford to spend time in his quest. And so his friend sets up an audition for a film, pointing out that at least one of the girls who don’t get the lead role may be the lady for Aoyama.

Oh the romance.

As you can probably tell from the cover art, the lucky lady is more than meets the eye.

Audition is a genuine love story mixed with tragedy and horror. It examines the dark side of love, documenting how it can turn to obsession. It also allows Miike to explore just what depths hide behind the meekest of exteriors.

I’m a fan of his work in general. While many of his films contain extreme violence, they can be so genre-defying this can be overlooked. For example, Dead or Alive 2 (the only things it has in common with Dead or Alive are the lead actors) is about assassins who donate their fees so poor children can be vaccinated against deadly diseases.

This idea of alternative codes of ethics can also be found in Scorsese’s gangster films. Inevitably both directors have been criticised for glorifying violence. Whether they do or not is something for each viewer to decide for his or herself.

Next up on my mini movie binge was Brad Anderson’s The Machinist.

Trevor Reznik, played by Christian Bale and named for Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, hasn’t slept in a year (and I thought I had bad insomnia). He is wasting away. Bale lost more than 60 pounds for the role, leaving him looking like this:

Still interested girls?

Anyway, Reznik is distracted at work by a co-worker named Ivan and the distraction causes another co-worker to lose an arm. But nobody at the factory has heard of Ivan, and there are no records of him. Yet he keeps appearing and Reznik believes there’s a conspiracy against him.

Mysterious post-it notes keep appearing on his fridge with a game of hangman drawn on them. Each note reveals another letter until Bale finally solves it (after two false starts, but that said I got it right off).

What I loved about this film — which I only saw for the first time last night — is the sheer originality. I don’t want to give too much away but it makes you wonder what secrets you’re keeping from yourself when you can’t sleep.

I’m not too sure what to watch next, although the next book on my list is Bruce Trigger’s Understanding Early Civilizations. I don’t know if I’ll make it out of that massive tome in one piece, but by God I’m going to try!