It is rare to go to the cinema and come away being deeply disturbed
and moved in equal measures.
But it happened to me last week and I am still turning over the
images and dialogue in my mind. The film was Fish Tank directed by Andrea Arnold. This is her second outing in the world of features – her
first being the excellent Red Road.
Arnold follows in the territory trail blazed by the great Ken Loach,
the under- belly of British society, but very much from a deeply felt feminist
prospective.
Fish Tank centers on the life of Mai, a hardened, angry and
brutalized 15 year old who blocks out the grimness of her daily life with
alcohol, violence and dance. Living in the transparent world of a high-rise
council estate, where we see lives played out by the under privileged inmates,
set against a backdrop of music, abuse and deprivation. Language is reduced to little more than
aggressive barking, peppered with extreme expletives, even from Mia’s
8-year-old sister.
The tiny cell like rooms are filled with visual squalor and filth.
TV is pumping out a mix of banal celebrity based programmes and endless
gyrating dance videos. The latter
being aped by the young girls living on the estate, and seemingly the height of
their aspirations. I do not intend to outline the whole film here, as I would
urge you to see it. It is a very important piece of British new wave cinema and
Arnold has a place at the top table.
It may seem a bizarre juxtaposition to link this film with the highly entertaining Little Miss Sunshine of a couple years back...
But at the
heart of that film was the sinister sexualization of very young girls via the
seemingly innocent beauty pageants run throughout the USA. This same trait is evident in Arnold’s
film but via the dance routines played out on the council estates copied from
the endless diet of pop videos pumped out via MTV style stations.
Arnold’s landscape is
educationally barren where the future of the children is destined to reflect
their own, mostly single parented, brutalized families. There is a glimmer of hope in the
actions of the Mia, the main protagonist, but only a glimmer. What I was left
with was the bleak view of the male species - a horrid predatory creature ready
to take advantage at every opening.
A toughly depressing, but nevertheless, essential piece of viewing.
Andrea Arnold's 2005 Oscar winning short film, Wasp is a remakable debut and is clearly a maquette for Fish Tank. It is well worth a view. But have a stiff drink first...
You can view Wasp here
Trailer for Fish Tank click here. Little Miss Sunshine click here