Fish Tank Review

Fish Tank is directed and written by Andrea Arnold and produced by Nick Laws and Kees Kasander, with the executive producers being Christine Langan and David M. Thompson. The year of production was 2009 and the film has a running time of 123 minutes. Fish Tank was filmed in six different locations all in England, UK which are: Barking (London), Tilbury (Essex), Tower Hamlets (London), Dagenham (Essex), Havering (London) and Stanford le Hope (Essex). The film has been classified as a 15 because it features sex, violence, profanity, alcohol and smoking which is inappropriate for people who are below this age group. The genre is a British coming of age drama with a sub-genre of social realism because Fish Tank is based on reality and it shows what the protagonist, Mia has to deal with in her life and how this affects both herself and the people around her. Fish Tank was funded by BBC Films and the UK Film Council and it has won several awards including the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2009 and the Best British Film BAFTA award in 2010. The main cast include Mia, played by Katie Jarvis, her younger sister Tyler played by Rebecca Griffiths, their Mother Joanne played by Kierston Wareing, Joanne’s Boyfriend Connor played by Michael Fassbender and Mia’s friend Billy played by Harry Treadaway.  

 

Fish Tank is about a fifteen year old girl named Mia Williams who has been expelled from her school and she lives on an Estate with her younger sister, Tyler and their single mother, Joanne. Mia has a strong passion for hip-hop dancing and she is often shown practising dance routines in her almost empty bedroom. It is clearly one of the only things that motivate her and when she is dancing, she is escaping the isolation that surrounds her on a day to day basis. She appears to share quite a flirtatious bond with Joanne’s boyfriend, Connor who encourages Mia to enter a competition for female dancers and lends her a video camera to film her dance routine on. Mia soon receives a phone call to inform her that she is through to the next audition which would be in person, in front of the judges and she makes the decision that she would dance to ‘California Dreamin’ which is Connor’s favourite song. One late night, when Mia and Connor had both been drinking, Connor asks to see Mia’s dance routine to which she does in the living room. When she finished her routine, Connor tells Mia to sit next to him on the sofa which inevitably led to them having sexual intercourse and the next morning, Mia discovers that Connor had left Joanne. Mia then confronts Connor at his own home and he admits that he knew Mia was only fifteen, confirming that their copulation was technically rape. However, instead of returning to her own home, Mia sneaks through a window into Connor’s house only to discover a video camera containing videos of Connor’s wife and young daughter, Kiera. Mia then ‘kidnaps’ Kiera by telling her they were going to buy ice cream under the permission of her Mother. The following day, Mia arrived at her audition but she walked out as ‘California Dreamin’ began to play possibly because the track reminded her of Connor and she wanted to forget about him completely. The film ends with Mia’s friend, Billy inviting her to live in Wales with him so she accepts the offer and leaves her family home.

The film follows a linear narrative because the sequences were in a clear order and each incident that happened was a result of the previous event. For example, Mia receiving the phone call that meant she was through to the next audition was the result of Connor lending her the video camera after understanding that Mia had a passion for dancing. Mia would never have been given this camera if Joanne had not met Connor at a party.

Personally, I thought that the performance of each character was excellent because they were all very natural and realistic and it did not look like their acting was forced. This is turn created a much more believable narrative resulting in the audience being able to understand and connect with the characters more than if their performance was to a low standard. What I found interesting was that Katie Jarvis, who played Mia, had never had any acting experience before Fish Tank. She was offered the role of Mia when a casting director overheard her having an argument with her boyfriend at a train station. To me, this shows that being a good actor does not depend on the amount of experience they have had, but on how much they can relate and connect with the character they are playing in order to help the audience do the same thing.  

The costumes that the characters wear are very symbolic and they inform the audience on their individual personalities. Mia is always shown wearing a tracksuit, tank top and large hoop earrings; this outfit is stereotypical of a young, lower-class person who is foul-mouthed and possibly violent. In many ways, Mia does live up to some of these stereotypes due to her extremely poor upbringing and the rough environment that she lives in. Her younger sister, Tyler wears similar clothes due to the influence of Mia so she has grown up believing that they are the clothes she should be wearing because other than Joanne and Mia, Tyler has no-one else to ‘look up to’. There is a scene in the film which shows Tyler smoking with one of her friends, portraying that she has a bad lifestyle as she has not been brought up correctly by Joanne. This made me and most likely other members of the audience angry because a Mother should not let her young daughter get away with smoking, highlighting the idea that Joanne does not care about her children enough. Joanne commonly wears inappropriate clothing such as crop tops and underwear which portrays her as attention seeking as she is always trying to attract the attention of Men, especially Connor.  When Connor is around Mia, he usually has his top off which shows that he liked her from the beginning and that his goal always was to have sex with her.

There is a wide variety of themes that are displayed in Fish Tank including betrayal, poverty, jealousy and lust. Betrayal is shown when Connor leaves Joanne after having sexual intercourse with Mia, possibly because he was embarrassed or he realised that what he was doing was wrong. Joanne was very upset because what he did was unexpected and she felt that he truly loved her. The family live in poverty and have a very low quality of life. This is shown by their small, cramped flat and also by the area that surrounds them. The theme of jealousy is mainly shown through the characterisation of Mia because near the middle of the film, Mia witnesses Joanne and Connor having sex without them knowing and she appears to be angry and upset by this because she purposely slams her bedroom door numerous times. Mia may be jealous that her Mother is in a relationship which is why she does not refuse when Connor begins to make out with her. It is this particular scene that also shows the theme of lust because Connor had clearly felt a strong attraction towards Mia for a while so may have planned out that moment before it actually happened.

The horse at the beginning of the film and the balloon at the end of the film was a true representation of Mia’s life. The chain that was on the horse represents how it was trapped and unable to move very far. This also represents how Mia was isolated and trapped within her own home and she lacked freedom and independence. Mia attempted to free the horse but she was unable to due to the owners of the horse threatening her. This shows that Mia also wanted to be free herself but she was incapable of doing so because of the boundaries that got in her way such as having nowhere to escape to.  However, at the end of the film when Mia drives off to Wales with Billy and a balloon is flying through the sky it represents the fact that Mia has finally gained her freedom and that there is now hope for her.

I thought that the cinematography in Fish Tank was beautiful and Robbie Ryan, the cinematographer did an excellent job of portraying the idea that Mia was isolated. There is a shot where Mia is looking out of her bedroom window almost in despair because she knows there are many opportunities for her out there but instead she is trapped inside her bedroom with her hands against the window as if she is trying to reach out for help. There is a similar message portrayed in the camera shot of the horse with the metal bars surrounding the area it is standing in. It is used to show that the horse has no escape and also to make the audience sympathise with the horse because they understand how cruel it is for it to be trapped. A low angle shot is used when Mia is caught trying to free the horse and she is attacked by the teenagers who own the horse. It shows that the teenagers are more superior than Mia at that moment of time and as she looks up on one of them it is clear to the audience who has the power, portraying the teenager as strong and threatening. I noticed that there were many close ups throughout Fish Tank to show the emotions of the characters. For example, when Mia is crying, there is a close up used to show the mascara running down her face which portrays her as frightened, making the audience feel sorry for her. There was a lot of handheld and shaky camera action in the film to show that Mia, Joanne and Tyler live in poverty and that their lifestyle is very unstable as none of them have much support. Natural lighting was used throughout the majority of Fish Tank to create a realistic atmosphere but at times, lighting was used for certain effects. For example, when Mia catches Joanne and Connor having sex, the lighting is very dark to show that she is carrying out a secretive act and it is something she should not be doing because she is invading their privacy. Many silhouettes were also used in order to focus on the surroundings rather than the character and this may have been used to show how small and worthless the character feels in such a big world. There was constantly a lot of loud background noise such as people shouting and upbeat music. The people shouting represents that the environment the family live in is chaotic and they never get a moment of peace. It also portrays the area as quite aggressive and uninviting. The upbeat music is used to show that the people are trying to stay positive despite living in poverty, representing them as hopeful and quite optimistic.

Fish Tank can be compared to a short film called Wasp which is also written and directed by Andrea Arnold because there are many similarities and differences. Firstly, they use similar mise-en-scene. In both films, the environment is the same (a run-down estate with poor living conditions) and this is emphasized by the handheld camera action because it implies that the characters have a shaky lifestyle that is of a bad quality. Additionally, the characters in both films wear similar costumes such as tracksuits which are stereotypical of someone that lives in this type of environment. Fish Tank and Wasp both start off with the protagonist being trapped and end with them gaining freedom; the single Mothers in both use dance and music as a way of connecting with their children. The films share the themes of romance, love, violence, hate, determination, maturity and betrayal. The differences are that in Fish Tank, it is only Mia who escapes from her entrapment whereas in Wasp, the whole family escapes. In Fish Tank, the relationship between the Mother and her boyfriend did not work out whereas in Wasp, it did. Despite these differences, I believe that Andrea Arnold consistently has a running theme of poverty in her films so is trying to inform her audience on the living conditions and lifestyle of people that live in such an environment.  

In my opinion, Fish Tank was an outstanding film because it was very skilful and the cinematography was incredible. I was able to easily connect with the characters and I was drawn in by the strong narrative. It explored a wide range of powerful themes and I believe that Andrea Arnold was an exceptional director and writer. I would definitely watch it again and I would strongly recommend anyone that has not seen it to watch it.