Film Analysis: Fish Tank

Fish Tank is another British drama/social realism genre film that was released in 2009. It was directed by Andrea Arnold and created by big British film companies; BBC Films, UK Film Council and Kasander Film Company. These companies are particularly known for creating and endorsing films that hold a lot of cultural relevance and represent British accurately. The film was also distributed by IFC Films, a distributer owned by the big American media company AMC Networks.

Fish Tank follows the story of a 15 year old girl called Mia Williams and her life living in a rough estate area in England. She lives with her mother and younger sister, both of which she has a sour relationship with. She is then introduced to a ‘friend of her mums’ who happens to be a man she finds herself drawn and attracted to. The story then begins to unfold a darker back story and plot that ends up putting Mia in danger.

The main character Mia is played by Katie Jarvis, with Fish Tank being her first acting job ever! She was literally found walking in a street one day and confronted; to be asked to be the main character in a film. Andrea Arnold thought that Jarvis looked exactly how she pictured Mia to look. This technique of casting is commonly used in social realistic films; using inexperienced or non-actor people in order to create a realistic character in their films.

I decided to review and gain research from this film. You can view the trailer to this film below:

Environment:

It is extremely clear through the trailer that the settings in the film are very typically found in social realism based films; such as estates, poor households and living environments (particularly flats), parks and areas where youths tend to gather and loiter around. From these first few screenshots I took, we can see Mia standing on the balcony of her flat estate building, overlooking an urban, rough area. In all of these screenshots, we can see the very plain design to her living place and the quantity her building holds. This could suggest to the audience an idea of us all being a number; however I feel that’s too much of a dramatic assumption for a social realist film.

Although the scenes are quite grubby and plain, we can see the film creators attempt to show a nice side to area with filmed shots of sunshine and sunset. This looked really nice and added a sense of calm to the clips. Also, overall the films look isn't too bad. A lot of the clips are very nice to look at due to the colours and nice angles that have been taken during filming. I find this eases the viewer into watching the film more comfortably, rather than feeling a bit put off by too dull scenes.

Another common environment style through the trailer seems to be dark atmospheres, particularly in points where some form of conflict and drama is happening to the main character. This happens in a lot of films, not only in the social realism genre, however it also seems to be an essential to a social realistic film as it explores the darkness and ugly sides of live of the characters and their lives.

From the frames I got screenshots of above, we can see Mia in three different ‘dark’ scenes; all looking very dramatic, negative and involving some form of conflict. Since the social realism genre is built on conflicts and problems of lives, using darkness in shots is an essential to explore these conflicts and enhance how much of an effect they have on characters lives.

There are however some clips throughout the film that contradict this darkness and have a really lovely style and feeling to them via positive themed mise-en-scene and lighting environments. An example of this is the screenshot below; a scene where Mia is interacting with her ‘love interest’.

It shows how she is feeling by using positive, natural lighting from the sun and the really pretty scenery around her enhances these feelings. The shot itself, being a long shot is really nice too as it shows both characters together when before, Mia was always on her own and only in company when there was the emotion of anger or sadness present. It suggests that not everything should be looked at as bad and that there are happy parts of life. I really liked this touch to the film, I felt more films need to include positive, and maybe even cute, scenes like that to give the audience some comfort in knowing not all is bad; to see the brighter side of something (regardless to the bad events that happen after this scene…).

Character & Costume:

One of the features of the trailer (and film) that I personally felt stood out was the characters and costume in the film. They all felt very realistic and suited the film and its themes. I took screenshots of the main character Mia to explore her character.

From what we can see, Mia is an outcast from other people; she is often very aggressive or rebellious towards other people and finds it hard to form nice, working relationships with anyone. She typically wears quite a plain wardrobe and is rarely seen looking ‘flawless’ and ‘pretty’, as she doesn't seem to take much care into her appearance.

The only real changes of effort we see to her appearance are when she either ties her hair up or leaves it down, and occasionally has no make up on. This leads the audience to believe she has a rather simple life as she doesn't seem to bother with her appearance or the way she is presented to anyone. Even when she gains a ‘love interest’, she still doesn't seem to change herself much. This shows either a stubborn behaviour or unawareness to her appearance and how people look at her compared to her peers.

I believe this doesn't really follow the real-life aspect that social realism requires, in my opinion. People in modern times are often said to be TOO aware and conscious of their own appearance  not letting themselves be themselves. However, this film does perceive the idea that if you do not take so much attention to looking perfect, you could be classed as an outcast, which is evident in cases of bullying and other real life scenarios. This shows the corruptness of people and communities, where the pretty and most attractive ones are always 'the best'.

Relationships:

The relationships explored in this trailer and film seem to be very typical and common amongst other social realist films. The films tend to include at least one of these main relationships types; a best-friend, a rival group or person (antagonist), a love interest who tends to have something that conflicts with the protagonist (whether it be age, background or that they're truly an antagonist) and almost always living within a broken family.

Fish Tank includes all 4 of these typical social realistic relationships, this being because these are common relationships to have with people in the real world (especially for people living in the areas and conditions the main character exists in).

Posted in: Analysis, Research