I know that by now I have written a lot on PTSD and its portrayal in film. In Gerald’s Game (2017) and Strange Circus (2005), I explored the themes that resonated with me on a personal level. Many mental health complications are rooted in PTSD and occur from lack of treatment. Today, my focus shifts to what happens when PTSD sufferers do not seek treatment, leading to the possibility of violence, by studying Asami in Takashi Miike’s 1999 film Audition.
The film itself begins under tragic pretences- Ayoama is a widowed man, ready to start dating again. Instead of leaving his house and meeting people naturally, he and his friend Yoshikawa, a film producer, set up a mock audition for a fake film so Ayoama can meet and manipulate the next girl of his dreams. Here, he meets Asami and begins to court her, not realizing that she is an unstable ticking time bomb.
Asami’s actual abuse is not revealed until around halfway through the film. An older male figure is seen burning her with red hot iron rods and making her dance for him. There is no blatant sexuality in this scene, but it is implied with the eagerness that the man has as he crawls towards Asami’s prepubescent figure to burn her inner thighs, and in the same inappropriate enthusiasm as he forces her to dance for him. This is a scene that must be put into perspective: if an old man was asking a child to dance for him with such eagerness, would it be considered inappropriate? I personally would be troubled by this situation, even if the blatant physical abuse is removed from the scene. Asami is a victim of physical abuse, and I would go as far as to say that the abuse was also sexual in nature.
Now, untreated PTSD differs greatly from patient to patient. The most common cases of PTSD are from military combat and sexual abuse. In my own personal case of PTSD, I went untreated for 13 years and developed Borderline Personality Disorder. However, my abuse was not as violent as Asami’s. Each patient will react differently to the trauma that they experience, and sometimes, violence comes as a reaction. This is seen when Asami, as an adult, returns to her abuser and strangles him with a piano wire. Her vengeance is satiated, but the damage is already done—she keeps a mutilated man in a sack in her apartment that she feeds her vomit to. As much as this seems like a demonization of PTSD and mental disorders, this is something that could actually happen in a very extreme case. Does every patient with PTSD act out violently? Absolutely not. Can they? Yes.
With untreated PTSD also comes isolation. Not seeking treatment for a serious illness or traumatic event causes the patient a lot of anxiety and stress, and can cause them to push people away. While Ayoama is seen having friends and a relationship with his son, Asami is completely alone—no friends, no family, no roommates, no interaction with anyone except for Ayoama. This is why Asami tries so hard to keep Ayoama for herself, demanding that he only love her and no one else. Obviously, this is an unrealistic expectation to have of anyone—one person cannot ever be the single source of happiness for someone else. This type of mindset leads to unhealthy behavior, as seen in the obsession Asami develops for Ayoama.
Anger management is also a common issue among PTSD sufferers. For sexual abuse victims, the anger typically goes one of two ways—the patient will be angry and blame themselves, or the patient will be angry and blame everyone else, usually people of the same age range and sex as their abuser. Typically, self-blame causes suicidal thoughts and outward blame causes more violent thoughts towards other people. Asami suffers from the latter, again seen in how she tortures the man in her apartment, how she murders her abuser, and, eventually, how she tortures Ayoama. Anger management issues can also cause obsessive behavior, where the patient is possessive over the people in their lives because they don’t want to be isolated again. And Asami’s reasoning for torturing Ayoama? Because he had love for other people, including his son and his deceased wife. Whether or not Asami plans on killing Ayoama is unclear, but her torture is visceral and brutal, the result of an anger-fueled, irrational, possessive rage.
So, how did Miike do in his portrayal of Asami and her untreated PTSD? I found his characterization to be sadly accurate. Homicidal tendencies in PTSD sufferers are fairly rare, but there have been court cases where PTSD has been an acceptable defense. “The findings of PTSD…are used to prove the diminished capacity of a person who claims to have been provoked to commit a criminal act because of previous trauma,” according to the Ohio State Bar Association. Even though Ayoama was not abusive towards Asami, she still associated him with her abuse, triggering her rage and obsession and causing her to act out violently. As I mentioned before, PTSD sufferers are not inherently violent. The possibility of violence lies in the type of trauma the patient was subject to, the reasoning for not seeking treatment sooner, and how the patient shifts the blame in their own head. Audition is an extreme case of what happens when PTSD goes untreated. This level of violence is rare, because Asami commits many violent crimes throughout the film rather than a single crime of passion, but it remains a possibility and a reality for sufferers of this illness. I have met and personally gotten to know PTSD sufferers who are outwardly violent because of lack of treatment. In my particular case, I have never been violent towards anyone because of my traumatic experiences. My blame has always been shifted at myself. The case varies from patient to patient, and the best way to remedy the suffering that all PTSD sufferers face is to seek help from a medical professional. PTSD can be treated medically, giving hope to the many sufferers of this illness. The lesson here is to understand the differences and potential of these patients, and to know that there is help readily available for sufferers of PTSD.
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