Think of Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan, but minus the hybrid human-swan CGI and more scenes about how an excessive pursuit of artistic perfection ruins family relationships – that’s The Audition, or in its original German name, Das Vorspiel. Director Ina Weisse’s drama film begins realistically enough: middle-aged, middle-class music teacher Anna (Nina Hoss) takes a student Alexander (Ilja Monti) under her wing and gives him violin lessons in preparation for an audition. Yet, it is precisely this ordinariness that anticipates an unsettling storyline. We soon learn that because of Anna’s upbringing, she carries a parenting psyche that would prove to