Fish Tank.

Fish Tank, the 2009 British drama, Directed by Andrea Arnold, is more British Social Realism than a working class, council estate, single parent girl with a bad attitude and dirty mouth. Oh, that just so happens to be a description of Fish Tanks lead girl Katie Jarvis.

The main setting of Fish Tank is a council estate in Barking, this isnʼt glamorous at all. None of the locations in the film are, theyʼre all gritty and raw conforming to the definition of the genre, that the films depict real life and remain unvarnished. Economic struggle is shown through the use of squatters flats with graffiti covered walls also through the setting of the “pikeys” being a couple of rusty caravans under a motorway flyover, this is perfectly gritty and connotes a real urban presence and real connotation of economic failure. They have shot in locations so run down and dilapidated that when Mia goes to Connors real house in a new estate in Tilbury, it almost seems like the dwellings of royalty (hyperbole), however this film is constantly brought back to working class industrial sites, warehouses and dodgy looking council estates. I love these subtle yet powerful contrasts which show the definitions and thin lines between social classes and how we the audiences react to them. I would use this contrasting technique in my opening sequence to show how the gap between social classes in bridged in the UK squat raving scene.

Fish Tank has no musical score, there is no non diegetic sound. The music used is very interesting. Thereʼs a lot of American RnB, when the “chavvy” girls on the estate are dancing to Cassies “Me and U” and when Ja Ruleʼs “Baby Girl” is playing on the TV of Miaʼs flat. This is a very true representation of Britainʼs working class white teenagers, and the heavy influence of American RnB music. However there is also a lot of motown and soul music, with Bobby Womackʼs “Californian Dreaminʼ” being one of the main songs in the film. The third main style of music in the film is old school American Hip Hop with Nasʼs

classic “Lifeʼs a Bitch” which closes the film, this song also suits the themes of the film, with the lyrics “Lifeʼs a bitch and then you die.” I like the idea of matching a songs feel and lyrics with whatʼs being shown on screen, I hope to use the music in my opening sequence as cleverly as this.

The camera work is very arty, almost as if each shot could be a provocative photograph. There is an abundance of depth of field, usually putting the subject in focus with an out of focused background, usually of a grey sky or tower block. There are hardly any stationary shots, the majority of the shots look as though theyʼve been filmed handheld or with a stedicam, this creates a shaky, rough effect connoting the raw, documentary feel of the film, which adds to the realism. Most of the editing is pretty basic, just simple, mostly slow edits. One point where the editing style changes is when Mia kidnaps Connors daughter and chases her through tilbury. A lot of the shots have unconventional compositions and framing, some being of just Miaʼs shoulder moving in and out of the frame. I like this soft style of editing however I donʼt think I will use much of this in my opening sequence as I donʼt have too long and this feel doesnʼt match the fast pace, confusion Iʼm looking for.

The dialogue is a very interesting aspect of the film, for me one of the most gripping. Throughout the film we are subjected to copious amounts of swearing, with very little content, very little effect to the narrative, nothing to draw you in. Mostly aggressive confrontation or arrangements of buying cheap cider to drink underage. The only conversations in the film that are worth time filming and listening to are the ones between Mia and Connor, which are few and far between. These become some of the most memorable moments in the film and I found myself waiting for the next one for the sense of calm and control. I doubt theyʼll be much dialogue in my opening sequence, of what there is, itʼll be short and to the point, although with an extent of ambiguity, to not tell the whole story straight away.Dancing in a cheap night club in Dagenham is seen as an ambitious thing for Mia, this is interesting as most people would see this as a lowly, degrading thing to do. Mia and her “pikey” friend are shot running around B&Q and the carpark messing about, piggybacking and riding trolleys, this connotes a carefree attitude between the working class and lack of responsibility, I like this sense of freedom and that other peoples slightly higher class lives are going on around them, again showing the subtle contrast in social class. I will definitely use this sense of high jinx in my opening sequence, showing my carefree characters and their interactions with the rest of the stressed out world.

The film was mainly produced by BBC Films and UK Film Council. BBC Films have produced such films as The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and Is Anybody There? The films that BBC Films produce are all based around a typical independent films ethos, showing a real, unvarnished viewpoint on (usually British) life, however unlike Film4, their films arenʼt very controversial, they deal with some big issues, but donʼt deal with them in the explicit nature that Film4 do. This is because the BBC in a national treasure of a company and is a very respectable company with a long term, loyal audience who they wouldnʼt want to risk with a story line to gritty or too controversial. Fish Tank broke the mould a little with its risky relationship between Connor and Mia, which is dealing with statutory rape and child exploitation, however the issue was dealt with well in my opinion, with the right focuses and level of explicit content.

The BBC used cross media convergence when marketing Fish Tank, through interviews on BBC Radio 5 and on their “Film Network” website. The film got a 5 star rating from the Guardian, a 7.4 star on IMDB and a 90% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes with a 78% rating from ʻaudienceʼ. These results show us that this film was received better critically,

Iʼd assume from this that the target audience was that of an educated background, working to middle class, mainly male and in to cinematography and art.