Analysis of Tag, by Sion Sono

Right away, you can get a sense of what this film is going to be like.  We have an immensely powerful score headed by a violin, accompanied by this shot of  a bus.  It’s an aerial shot, and it captures the bus from a lopsided angle as it goes over it.  The theme of dimensions is a theme that is apparent throughout the film.

It very quickly transitions tone when it gives us our first look at our main character, Mitsuko.  That is her name… for now.  The score is much more beautiful, and it gives her an innocent image as soon as you see her.

Then all of the sudden, they whip out these pillows, which you didn’t see in the shot before.

You wonder why? Well feathers are another common image in the film, and it’s interesting to see them appear out of nowhere, as if they’re foreshadowing something to come.  Because Mitsuko drops her pen, she has to bend over and pick it up.  It is at this point where you notice, the peaceful score is carrying you through the scene, only to be interrupted by one of the most shocking things I have ever seen in all my years of watching movies.

Yes, the bus is chopped in half, and everyone but Mitsuko is dead. This scene is full of quick cuts, with shots making a small pan to the side, and another changing focus.  It establishes the need to worry before she even starts running from this invisible killing force.  As she runs away from it, there’s a really interesting moment where we see her feet running.

This is another huge theme of the film.  It’s called Tag, and in a sense, this invisible force is tagging her.  However, it’s another aerial shot.  It establishes this character as a part of a world of dimensions, which ties in with the last shot of the movie.

Later, Mitsuko suddenly changes her clothes in a river, only to come out with completely new clothes.  You may think it’s a continuity error, but it’s not.  We learn this because as she keeps walking, female school students, all of who know her by name, suddenly surround her. It’s obvious at this point that something is off about her experience this early into the film.  Then we meet Aki, who acts as a guide to Mitsuko.  Aki gives us a feeling that this is a normal world, but Mitsuko can’t believe it, just like the audience.

Then, we the audience gets taken into Mitsuko’s school.  Aki is holding Mitsuko because she can see how stressed she is, but that introduces another important theme, sisterhood.  You may notice that there are very, very few male characters in this film.  Some characters even insist that Mitsuko and Aki are in love, if the translations are correct. Sure enough, the girls are talking about what sluts are. Very briefly, gender stereotypes are introduced as an idea.

Then the girls decide to skip class and run into the woods.  It’s a playful montage that lasts for a few minutes and it almost seems strangely out of place.  There’s a shot of the sun, which is immediately juxtaposed by another aerial shot of running.  This implies that nature is sort of keeping tabs on these girls as they run away from school.  We get an interesting conversation that happens once they reach their destination. 

The character Sur tells the girls that Mitsuko’s dream is possible. Sur brings up the multiverse theory, suggesting that Mitsuko was in another universe. She then demonstrates this by throwing a rock into a lake, and explaining how it has a ripple effect.  This implies that some actions can transcend dimensions in this films universe.  When you think of the way it’s been filmed thus far, the aerial shots seem significant since they show a more objective viewpoint of our characters, validating this theory.

Then, this happens.

Sure, it turned out to be a story Sur was telling, but look at the shot. It’s not only a surprise to us, the audience, but the alligator (or crocodile), is biting Taeko where her vagina is.  This beast is a part of the sort of dream world that we have been introduced to in this film, but having it attack Taeko there is significant, because it shows that it is attacking womanhood. 

Once this little scene is over, the audience suspects that the beginning was a dream since so much actual time is dedicated to the scene in the woods. Time is something Sion Sono is very careful about.  Another film of his, Love Exposure, is over four hours long, and was originally going to be six.  However, there are clues that this is still not a normal world.  Not only the scene with the alligator, but there’s also a sleeping pad and two pillows that come out of nowhere.  Once again, the idea that Mitsuko is dreaming is introduced, but there are these shots:

The most interesting thing there, which I can’t illustrate with screenshots, is that Aki’s shot lasts the longest.  That succession of shots not only establishes Taeko, Sur, and Aki as Mitsuko’s friends, but it establishes Aki as someone special.  Sur explains something interesting, that according to her, doing things spontaneously without thought will allow her to change dimensions.

The playful score comes back to the film once they get back to the school, and then they get settled in class. Then, you see a shot of a static pillow the floor, next to Mitsuko.  The audience wonders if it’s another dream, but then Aki tells Mitsuko to pass it, and then everyone dies.  I’m not even kidding; the teacher kills everyone but Mitsuko.  What’s interesting is that before Mitsuko has time to react, the teacher has time to kill her. 

We hear the return of the score from earlier in the bus scene, indicating that this is as real as the film has gotten, and the force that wants to kill Mitsuko is back.  However, instead of the wind, which is sometimes an actual metaphor for ambiguity, the teachers are the ones doing the killing.  What’s also interesting is that Taeko and Sur are there to protect Mitsuko, after Aki is supposedly killed.  This teacher soon kills Taeko, then Sur, but what’s really interesting is that they don’t seem to be trying hard to escape.  In contrast to the Velociraptor kitchen scene in Jurassic Park, Sur and Mitsuko get up over the tables and desks as if nothing is going to happen to them.  You may think that this is an error in the film, but it’s not, because once Sur get’s shot, she gets up and shakes Mitsuko to knock some sense into her.  It gives a very good illustration of what feels like a dream, where nonsensical things happen spontaneously.  Most interestingly, Sur’s last words to Mitsuko are telling her that she needs to beat life.  I’m not sure about the exact translation, but using the word “beat” is foreshadowing.

Once Sur is killed, we get an interesting shot.

This is an example of focusing on the weapon used to kill, rather than the perpetrator.  It’s not about gun control, it’s about showing the audience that a machine is killing people, and not the human teacher.  This is also foreshadowing the ending, though it’s very subtle and quick.  It makes the gun Mitsuko’s enemy.

Mitsuko runs out of the school with all the rest of the students.  We hear some interesting dialogue.  Some random students tell Mitsuko that she has to do something, and she is very confused as to why it’s her position to do something.  Then we get this super cool shot and others like it:

The black color of the background, and the contrasting white of the feathers not only show a delicate subject, but they show falling.  Mitsuko is presented as innocent and delicate throughout the film thus far, and we can see that these feathers are obeying the laws of nature, and falling.  It’s symbolism, not only the purity of the white color, but the despair that Mitsuko is going through.

Then, surprise, the killer wind comes back.  The audience is not only confused and begging for answers, but Mitsuko is off and running again.  We see it from the perspective of the wind following her, again.  It appears as though we got nowhere close to finding answers, until a certain point in the next few scenes. 

Mitsuko finds herself in a town, and goes to the police station, where we are shocked to learn that she is miraculously, not Mitsuko.  She is actually Keiko, and she’s getting married this very moment. 

The score gives us a few “tings” that make us question reality, along with Mitsuko/Keiko.  The mirror brings us back to the theme of dimensions.  Once she is taken to the place of the wedding, we see Aki, and she whispers to Mitsuko/Keiko that they will talk later.  This gives the audience hope for answers, just as it does to the main heroine.  We learn that she is moth Mitsuko and Keiko, but that she needs to go along with the wedding.  During the wedding, we get one of the freakiest things I have ever seen.

Check out this incredible shot.  There is the static casket on the elevated floor, which hides a mystery of what is inside, as well as what this really is. Even though it’s in the background, it’s still the object that grabs out attention.  Then… we learn.

It’s a man with a pig’s head, and the mouth is bloody and it makes a few oinks.  As soon as the casket is opened, the score deviates from the wedding theme and onto nothing as we take in the horror of the bridegroom.  Then a wedding cake is brought into the ceremony, as the girls chant “kiss him” in English.  This wedding ceremony is another critique of social norms in Japan. 

She runs away from the wedding, where she looks into another mirror and changes identities.  She is now Izumi, or Mitsuko/Keiko/Izumi.  She gets caught in this race where she is running, once again.  Only this time, a familiar face comes out of nowhere to start chasing her.

We hear the oink, then we see the shot.  It’s incredibly interesting to note, that it’s a very similar shot to the casket one.  The pig is in the center, behind all these girls and yet, he is the center of attention.  All of the sudden, the girls who Izumi was running with, turn into Sur, Taeko, and Aki. 

Then Izumi runs into this cave, where Aki takes her through a bunch of possessed girls who look honest to God, just like Sadako from Ringu.  Izumi turns back into Mitsuko, and “escapes” after ripping wires out of Aki.

This shot is of Mitsuko escaping, and it reminds me of the end of Death by Hanging. We know she is finally seeing reality. She walks into a kitchen, where we see men working. Actual men! Then we learn that Mitsuko is in fact, the main character of a video game, called “Tag.”

Lots of things make sense at this point, but then she goes on to meet her destiny.  She appears back in the cave, and walks by copies of herself. 

The shot is a tracking shot, moving along with her through this hallway at a slow pace, where the score is creepy but suspenseful as well.  She meets this person playing the video game “Tag,” where we learn that this is the future, and her DNA was used to make her into a video game character, and her destiny is to have sex with this man on this bed.  It is then that we see the pillows.  She tells them to not play with her like a toy, which is defiance of the patriarchy.  We see some symbolic imagery of the moment in the woods where her finger was pricked, as a feather falls on it and turns read.  It is a symbol of Mitsuko realizing that she is human and dead, and she kills the men in the cave, surrounded by red feathers. Then in all the moments in the film where she was Mitsuko, Keiko, and Izumi, but she is bleeding and looks dead. Then, we get this final aerial shot.

This is where she literally, is two dimensional on a white plane, and becomes three dimensional by getting up and walking away. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ox0CrSz9GA