553 Fish Tank

[Jeff]

Fish Tank



British director Andrea Arnold won the Cannes Jury Prize for the searing and invigorating Fish Tank, about a fifteen-year-old girl, Mia (electrifying newcomer Katie Jarvis), who lives with her mother and sister in the depressed housing projects of Essex. Mia’s adolescent conflicts and emerging sexuality reach boiling points when her mother’s new boyfriend (a lethally attractive Michael Fassbender) enters the picture. In her young career, Arnold has already proven herself to be a master of social realism (evoking the work of Mike Leigh and Ken Loach), investing her sympathetic portraits of dead-end lives with a poetic, earthy sensibility all her own. Fish Tank heralds the official arrival of a major new filmmaker.

Disc Features

- New high-definition digital transfer, approved by director Andrea Arnold, director of photography Robbie Ryan, and editor Nicolas Chaudeurge (with DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
- Three short films by director Andrea Arnold: Milk (1998), Dog (2001), and the Oscar-winning Wasp (2003)
- New video interview with actor Kierston Wareing
- Interview with actor Michael Fassbender from 2009
- Audition footage
- Stills gallery by on-set photographer Holly Horner
- Original theatrical trailer
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film scholar Ian Christie

DVD:
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Blu-ray:
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[lacritfan]

Really impressed with this. It treads some of the same the same ground as both Precious and An Education, but I liked it quite a bit more than either the clumsy former film or charming latter one. I haven't seen Arnold's feature debut, Red Road, but loved her short, Wasp, which finds echos here. Michael Fassbender is pretty great, but it is Katie Jarvis and the scene-stealing actress who plays her little sister (both of whom are apparently making their acting debuts) who imbue the whole production with its greatest asset -- authenticity. That authenticity takes a pretty big hit with a late-game, improbable, impulsive action by the protagonist that feels out of character to me, though I can see why Arnold did it. Regardless, she recovers admirably in the finale.

Arnold's use of Academy ratio was pretty inspired and completely appropriate. It's nice to see someone other than Gus Van Sant still using the 1.37 frame so well. She has some really beautiful compositions and shots that are impressive without calling attention to themselves. Can't wake to pick up the presumptive Criterion disc later this year.

Impressed by this as well. May be a stretch but Katie Jarvis struck me as a late-teen Samantha Morton; Andrea Arnold as a no-nonsense Jane Campion or Lynne Ramsay (shouldn't pigeonhole female directors but sorry...). To me authenticity is just another word for vulnerability in this case.

[LQ]

I found it to be very well-made, well-acted, but ultimately kind of a superfluous viewing experience. It trod territory seen too many times and unfortunately I couldn't see the characters as anything more than stereotypes in yet another gritty social realist drama, although they all played their parts perfectly.

However, I did enjoy the look and feel of it and I was impressed that Arnold was able to create uncomfortable tension even when it was apparent what development was coming around the bend. And as Jeff said,

She has some really beautiful compositions and shots that are impressive without calling attention to themselves

I do think Arnold is a talented director, I just didn't think that this film provided anything particularly fresh or interesting in terms of story.

[bearcuborg]

I don't like that one of my rare reviews on this site is a pan, but - I felt cinematographer Robbie Ryan salvaged Andrea Arnold’s routine, and manipulative second feature length film. While it was less a sophomore slump than a misfire - it shows Arnold has the goods; with a great cinematographer, talent for shaping performances and a knack for unnerving sexual situations. However, 2/3’s of the way through her film it falls flat on it’s face and never recovers.

Spoiler

The film lost me after the boyfriend fucked her.

I don’t know if Andrea realized how good her movie was up till that point, but I saw the narrative wheels turning and ending up detracting from a looser feel that was so much more interesting in the beginning. The scene at the strip club was

Spoiler

painfully manipulative, along with the near drowning of the the little girl which helped to make the lead completely unlikable,

and left the somewhat ambiguous ending empty and no interest to me.

[Brian C]

Re: the strip club scene:

Spoiler

I didn't have a problem with that scene. It was painful, sure, but I didn't see it as any more manipulative than anything else. It's really the only logical outcome, I thought, and it's powerful because we can see it coming from a mile away, even though she cannot. I think it also sheds some light on the cruelty in the Fassbender character's treatment of her, because it's hard to believe that he didn't know (or couldn't guess) what her audition entailed, but he encouraged her and got her hopes up. I felt he set her up for humiliation in order to flatter her to win her trust, knowing that he wouldn't be around for the aftermath anyway.

I have no defense, however, for the other scene you mention (which also bothered Jeff above). I think that scene is such a complete misfire that it leaves a deep wound in the film's effectiveness. Not a fatal wound, perhaps - I liked the film overall - but enough to leave some pretty serious scars. Like Jeff, I didn't think her actions were in character, and it amounted to very little anyway considering all the hassle.

[mfunk9786]

Glad to see this finally announced. I liked Red Road just as much, and am hoping to see it at some point down the line. Andrea Arnold makes films that don't hit you like a ton of bricks as you're watching them, but linger on in the form of moods and images that seem to have burned themselves into your brain without you ever realizing they'd penetrated it in the first place.

[eusticity]

As my first post I want to say how excited I am for the Blu-ray release, and to make a case for the hysterical in the film. Although I must do so behind the spoiler curtain, as it were:

Spoiler

I think everything in the movie is interesting if you look at it aslant, with Mia's POV in mind. The movie sets a precedent for her impulsiveness - trying to rescue the horse, which is a completely romantic and impractical reaction. When Mia kidnaps the daughter of the boyfriend, it's the reverse of that incident.

It reminded me of moments in two other "foreign films" I've seen and lately loved - Lorna's Silence and Un Prophète - when the otherwise "realistic" plot reaches a point that the protagonist can no longer stand and so that boundary (of what is "real," for the character and the film) is stretched or transgressed and made hysterical. Granted, in Fish Tank the moment is less fanciful (but represented, in the daughter's fairy dress) and the film "recovers" from the moment in the way that Lorna's Silence certainly does not, but I do think it's an intentional, and successful, action and deviation in tone.

[Rupert Pupkin]

Love the artwork (despite the comments I've read here and there).

I already own the Artificial Eye UK Blu-ray - transfer is magnificent, but will buy the Criterion BR. Bonus seems to be different : I'm looking forward for the "audition footage" of Ms.Katie Jarvis, and the 3 short movies are included : the two early on the Criterion, whereas the Artificial Eye only featured "Wasp".

I also hope that the photo gallery will be extended in comparison to the A.E, because all the photos were soooo beautiful... Regarding the movie, it's one of my favorite of the last year. It reminds me a mixed emotion cinematography of Dardennes's Rosetta, Sofia Coppola, G.Van Sant's Elephant for the 1:33 and some trademark clouds and landscape shooting...

[Don Lope de Aguirre]

Though accomplished, I'm confused as to why this film is so highly regarded. I am sure that in years to come it'll be seen as a 'by the numbers' piece of work. As a contribution to British Cinema it follows a pretty well worn path.
Lynne Ramsay is clearly a superior talent.

[criterionsnob]

Beaver

[mfunk9786]

WHOA. I couldn't have expected it to look that good!

[jbeall]

As my first post I want to say how excited I am for the Blu-ray release, and to make a case for the hysterical in the film.

Interesting point. Do you think

Spoiler

the hysterical would also explain Mia's urinating on the carpet at Conor's house?

Further thoughts: While Conor's seduction of Mia is certainly morally offensive and difficult to sit through, I don't think it derails the film at all. Throughout the first half of the film, Conor and Mia clearly have better chemistry than Conor does with Mia's mother. Moreover, it's clear that Mia's got a crush on him, and she's not incurious about sex. She's not as blatant about it as the other girls her age (the dancing group at the beginning) are, but then again she's also curious enough to watch her mother and Conor having sex. The one aspect of the seduction that didn't work for me was Conor's dirty-talk ("Is his cock this big?" ), but IMO Fassbender rescues the scene with his immediate horror the instant it's all over. His character really is a charming sociopath, as Brian C. points out, but he's also manifesting a bit of cognitive dissonance, as if he can walk away on good terms and everything's fine b/c he's no longer around to see the fallout of his actions.

Where the film disappoints me is after the strip club scene. Mia was about to be sent to boarding school, but now she gets to go to Wales? If her mother's sending her to boarding school b/c she wants her out of the house, I'm not sure why she allows a trip that would appear to be short-term. Anyway, I thought the boarding school plotline was dropped too quickly. Otherwise, I thought this was an impressive film buoyed by some very strong acting performances.

[oldsheperd]

I got around to watching this last night. Overall pretty good but the film does kind of take the same kind of unfulfilling twists that Red Road did. I wonder if Arnold saw the video for The Doves "Satellite Town" and was like, "Eureka!"

[eusticity]

Interesting point. Do you think

Spoiler

the hysterical would also explain Mia's urinating on the carpet at Conor's house?

Spoiler

To me, it's abject: that Mia's shock, shame, rejection, etc., must be aberrantly and physically expelled.

I didn't read the trip to Wales as temporary; it didn't seem that she would ever return to her mother's home.
It may ultimately be an incompatible/impractical fairytale like trying to rescue the horse, however.

I must say I never thought the seduction was inevitable!

[peerpee]

Though accomplished, I'm confused as to why this film is so highly regarded. I am sure that in years to come it'll be seen as a 'by the numbers' piece of work. As a contribution to British Cinema it follows a pretty well worn path.

Couldn't agree more. It's many gears behind the best of the rest of Europe at the moment.

[domino harvey]

First, this thing is demo quality-- it might be the best Blu-ray transfer I've seen yet. As for what it's presenting, well, I sounds like I am more forgiving than most. Sure, it starts out like a one-off episode of Skins (sans drugs and a sense of humor), but I admired the film's devotion to the hopelessness of its teenaged subject, a fifteen year old girl stuck in a sea of unwinnable scenarios and swinging out in all directions, at everyone and everything, for lack of any concrete focal point to funnel her class-fueled rage. Even the Academy aspect ratio boxes her in. She makes poor choices based out of immediacy, but there's the sense that even good choices would do her no good. Her's is an ineffectual world no matter the scenery, and contrary to the disc's interview with the actress playing her mother, I see no hope in the ending-- doomed from birth, she seems doomed til death. But like any animal caught in a corner, she's going out kicking and biting.

[Zinoviev]

I agree completely with Domino. An absolutely first-rate transfer and, I think, a powerful twist on the angry-young-man school of British social-realist filmmaking. I liked the film a good deal more than most here. Exhibit A in the tired old nature v. nurture debates.

Spoiler

The sex scene between Mia and Connor managed to be both erotic and deeply 'wrong,' as C's immediate post-coital drunken guilt reveals. When she discovers the truth about Connor's family -- contrast Kiera's applauded dance scene on the Sony cam with Mia's own efforts, unacknowledged by mother, derided by sister -- the half-assed abduction of Kiera made total sense to me. Deep down she's too "good" to let K drown, thus the deus ex stick from the river. Mia's breakdown in the last reel, after she realizes the horse (same-ish age as she) has been put down encapsulates it all. Unlike the horse, she gets away to Wales, though I doubt it's a very happy ending in store for her, either.

I look forward to more from Arnold.

[Numero Trois]

I'm looking forward for the "audition footage" of Ms.Katie Jarvis

The audition dance footage does not include anything with Ms. Jarvis. Thankfully, that feature is highly entertaining even without her.

Spoiler

The scene at the strip club was painfully manipulative, along with the near drowning of the the little girl which helped to make the lead completely unlikable,

Spoiler

Would it have been less manipulative if she had stayed at the club and completed the audition? The sequence sums up the limited options the character has and how nearly everything and everyone lets her down in one way or the other. It also echoes the pervasive adult sexuality that the kids are exposed to on a regular basis earlier in the movie.

I do agree that there are some rote story gyrations with the near-drowing sequence. On the one hand in a story about wasted lives something strong was likely needed. But it did require something more inspired and incisive than a drowning aborted at the last second by the person who caused it. On the other hand, though, I'm not sure that a quieter climax would have been the way to go. Like with the previous film, Arnold's story plotting is not as sharp as her rapport with the cameraman and the actors.

Anyway, it's hard to imagine what else Arnold can do with this milieu. It feels like she's said all that can be said about it.