Japanese
director Sion Sono is probably the director whose work I have most
reviewed on this blog, and yet to call myself a fan isn't entirely
accurate. Sono has the dubious distinction of being, at least in my
eyes, consistently inconsistent. He certainly has the ability to
create some stunning films as “Cold Fish”, “Himizu” and “Why
Don't You Play In Hell?” can attest to, but he equally has the
ability to create total duds like “Guilty Of Romance” , “The
Land of Hope” or the recent “Tokyo Tribe”. With each film you
are never sure which Sono you are going to get. Whilst he is always
a very inventive director, his films are unlike anyone else's, I also
find him to be a sloppy filmmaker to the point that some of his films
appear rushed. I'm also not sure if he is a great actor's director
either as I always have issues with him letting his actors overact in
a lot of his movies. This year, 2015, sees Sono release five brand
new films (as well as a television movie too), which is easily his
most productive year to date, but with this increase in production
will his film's come across as even more rushed or less polished than
normal? “Tag” is the first of these five films that I have been
able to watch so lets take a look and see just which Sion Sono came
to the party this time.
Due
to the confusing nature of the story, I am once again going to
blatantly steal the synopsis from imdb: “A girl's life cascades
into chaos as everyone around her suffers a gruesome fate while she
herself becomes less and less certain of who she is and what kind of
a world she lives in”.
I
am not even going to bother to hide the fact that I disliked “Tag”
immensely. It felt an immature story, that made little sense, and
whose premise bordered on the very disturbing. Worse is the fact
that Sono has muddled his intentions behind the film, making it even
more frustrating than it should've been. Unfortunately “Tag” is
a film that is impossible to talk about, in regards to its faults,
without revealing the film's finale, so if you are sensitive to
spoilers and want to go into this film fresh, stop reading now.
Much
is going to be made by gore hounds about how “cool” the opening
bus massacre is in “Tag” and I am sure it is through this scene
that the film will make its reputation. Whilst it rivals the opening
of Sono''s own “Suicide Club” in terms of bloodletting, in terms
of cinematic technique, it is not even close. The terrible CGI
carnage on display in this scene is exactly the kind of thing I am
talking about with Sono being sloppy, or having a close enough is
good enough approach to making films. It just looks so amateurish
and takes you out of the film immediately, so you never feel the
horror of the situation nor the impact that it should make on our
main character. I have never been a fan of CGI blood, but understand
how it makes creating a scene like this easier, knowing you never
have to reset the shot again and clean up the actors for a second
take, but if you have to resort to using computer imagery, you need
to make it as seamless as possible for it to exist in the real world.
Personally, I just found the scene to be very lazy.
The
problem with “Tag” is that it is a very hard film to go along
with because it is just so confusing, and it appears that it makes
little to no sense. For the majority of this eighty odd minute
movie, we have a teenage school-girl, Mitsuko, constantly running
around whilst all the other schoolgirls in her vicinity are being
massacred by an unknown and unseen force. When the film finally does
stop to breathe and we are introduced to more of Mitsuko's friends,
unfortunately it doesn't get any clearer, as we are only with these
new girls for a brief moment before they too are killed. It gets
weirder still as Mitsuko soon morphs into a totally different
character named Keiko who is readying herself for her wedding,
however the murders continue to happen with Keiko being once again
the only survivor. She morphs once more into the athlete Izumi, and
it is then, that the viewer can feel the pattern and knows what will
come next, but still has no reasons as to why it is happening. It is
also around this time that you become cognisant of the fact that
there are no males whatsoever in this world. The only constant in the
film is Mitsuko's friend Aki, who appears in each variation of the
world, and who is equally dubious about the reality they exist in.
MAJOR
SPOILERS COMING! STOP READING IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO KNOW THE ENDING
OF “TAG”.
Once the reveal of what is truly going on in “Tag” is explained,
the film is at its most troubling and what Sono is actually trying to
say has to be questioned. It turns out that the film is set well
into the future and that Mitsuko and her friends are actually
characters in a video game created by males and played by males, who
have somehow gotten hold of their DNA back when they were living,
breathing humans. The problem with this is that it then means that
the entire reason for these girl's being alive is to be a male's toy,
a plaything, and once Mitsuko and her friends realise this, they end
up committing suicide. So what is Sono trying to say then? Is it a
very troubling misogynistic take, that women are worth nothing except
when useful to men, and thus once they outlive their usefulness, they
should then be destroyed? Whilst Sion Sono has been the target of
frequent accusations of misogyny, I find it hard to think in this day
and age that a filmmaker would be promoting such a situation.
However, Sono does not help himself or those trying to defend him
when he includes scenes such as when the police officer is molested
early on in “Tokyo Tribe”. Unfortunately too, these kind of
scenes are frequent in a Sono film and often very tasteless.
However, it is conceivable that Sono has actually created a tale with
a feminist streak to it, in that the girls at the end decide to take
control of their own lives and refuse to be a slave to men's
disgusting desires by willingly taking their own lives. I am not
sure exactly what Sono is actually going for here, and that is the
biggest flaw to “Tap” because its message is muted by not being
clearly defined. As such, it then becomes pointless.
In
terms of the filmmaking on display, as I mentioned earlier, it is at
times a little immature. Due to the nature of the story, it has been
filmed from a male's fantasy perspective. Camera angles are low to
the ground, so as to get as many upskirt and panty shots as possible,
whilst the characters themselves all do silly things that exist only
in a males mind, such as pillow fighting in slow motion. Of course
when danger is around, the main girls are able to kick arse also and
all of the girls are very beautiful. I must point out some
positives, as Sono does use some quite inventive camera work,
especially early on when the massacre takes place, particularly when
representing the unseen force killing the girls, and the film does
look good throughout, but even this didn't stop me from thinking just
how rushed the film felt.
From
an acting point of view, for once I had no problem with Sono letting
his actors overact, however I thought that Reina Triendl (who places
Mitsuko) was incredibly dull in the role and seemed to have one
expression on her face the entire time, despite all the madness going
on around her. Also for someone who spends the majority of her
screen-time running, she looked so awkward in her running style. Her
long legs and knobbly knees made her look like a baby giraffe
attempting to stand for the first time. On the other hand, young
Erina Mano excelled in her far too brief role of Izumi (the athlete).
The camera loves her and she is so charismatic that its hard to take
your eyes off of her. Sono obviously loves her too because he cast
her in four of his five films that he released in 2015.
Overall,
“Tag” left a bad taste in my mouth and to be honest, I'm starting
to get a little sick of the cinema of Sion Sono. I still have four
more films of his to check out from this year, so he may change my
mind yet, but right now my attention is starting to wain. Just from
other reviews I've read on “Tag”, it is obvious to see that this
is a film that has divided people, so it wont be for everyone, but in
my opinion this is not a great film at all. It is sloppily put
together, and for the most part very immature, but its biggest flaw
comes in its confused and potentially disturbing premise.
2
Stars.
