Audition feels like it could have been made by an inexperienced Abbas Kiarostami, which is supposed to be a compliment. The filmmaker goes to Afghanistan to audition civilians for a role in a film that she is making, and she films the audition process and gathers interviews about the experience one goes through in Afghanistan after appearing in films, or even photographs. Predictably, the women have a tougher time with it than the men. Many women who are approached by Pazira for an interview immediately cover their mouths and decline, while others around often begin teasing. To have one’s image taken in this country is seen to be shameful, and somehow taints the image of those who are filmed’s entire families. One of the film’s two bravura moments occurs when Pazira asks a man if he would behead his sister if he found out that she had been filmed, and he easily said yes. He then asks her why she came to Afghanistan to shoot this film, and her answer is bold, eloquent, and ballsy; it caused gasps.
A amoxicillin dosage big decision was made to keep many of Pazira’s questions and replies in the film, which I think is essential, and something that most documentaries should be doing. How can I expect to appreciate and understand what a subject is answering if I do not know what was asked? To have the question, then the answer is to have the full, unabridged picture of the experience. The only moments of diegesis in the film are with intermittent voiceovers accompanied by superfluous , non-diegetic music where Pazira inexplicably tells the viewer what we will be seeing in the next scene. After the editor made such a good decision to leave the questions in with the interviews, it is nearly undone by this silly idea.
The film poses some fun, but pretty pointless comparisons of male auditions and female auditions. Basically, the men are goofy and terrible, while the women shown are sensitive, and serious. Such a limited sampling means pretty much nothing, but it did allow for a pretty great scene in which three male actors all perform terrible examples of crying, and then a young woman is asked to cry, and then she just starts to flat out weep on demand, one-upping the brilliant audition in Mulholland Dr.