Director: Andrea Arnold
Screenplay: Andrea Arnold
Starring: Katie Jarvis, Michael Fassbender, Kierston Wareing, Rebecca Griffiths, Harry Treadaway
Country: United Kingdom
Running Time: 123 minutes
Year: 2009
BBFC Certificate: 15
Andrea Arnold is one of the most distinctive film-makers of the 21st century. Her cinematic vision of life in these sceptred isles has resulted in some of the very best films of recent times. Following her sensational debut Red Road in 2006, Arnold continued to explore those living hard lives in harsh environments with Fish Tank. This limited edition blu ray reissue by Imprint offers a new opportunity to revisit this stunning film.
Mia, played by Katie Jarvis in her debut onscreen role, is a fifteen-year-old girl adrift and living day to day on a crumbling East London estate comprised of low-rise apartment blocks in various states of disrepair. What passes for her life is shown in stark terms. The camera prowls ahead of her as she frenetically walks through her neighbourhood, getting into verbal spats with everyone from a man on his balcony, buying a bottle of cider from an older boy on the estate, and finally provoking a fight with a rival girl in a moment of shocking brutality – the first of several jolting scenes that leave you in no doubt as to where you are. What passes for love and affection in terms of her family are volleys of monstrous verbal insults from both her younger sister Tyler (a scene-stealing performance by Rachel Griffiths) and her mother Joanne (Kierston Wareing), a hard-partying woman for whom the ‘90s never ended, and who treats her children with varying levels of contempt and hostility.
Mia’s inner life is revealed away from the family home, as she forces her way into an empty flat which she uses as her own personal dance studio. Her passion for street dancing is her refuge, the one thing that she cares about, that seems to give her life some meaning. The scenes of her working out her routines to some truly epic old-school hip-hop classics by the likes of Eric B & Rakim and Gang Starr are remarkable moments of sublime cinema, where Arnold finds the core of Mia’s character with the aid of her superstar director of photography Robbie Ryan. His handheld camerawork is a wonder to behold throughout, and it is no wonder that his career has gone from strength to strength – he most recently shot Bugonia for Yorgos Lanthimos, for example.
Into this family dynamic steps Conor, the new man in Joanne’s life, played by Michael Fassbender. Even now, it is still incredible to see an actor who has just starred in films like 300 and Hunger suddenly turn up in the doorway of a grotty kitchen looking for some breakfast. Conor is calmness personified, softly spoken and generous with his time for not just Joanne but her daughters as well. His confident, easy manner cannot help but draw Mia’s attention, and the fledgling bond that develops between them becomes the emotional core of the film. On paper this is a tale that could play out in obvious ways, but Arnold’s narrative decisively undercuts any sense of assumption that the viewer may have. Scenes that make you anticipate danger or threat are sharply avoided, so that when the very real physical and emotional damage occurs, you are left reeling in shock alongside the characters.
With so much talk recently about unlikeable characters in films since the release of Marty Supreme, it made me wonder a) where has everybody been since the dawn of cinema itself, and b) what would they make of Fish Tank, with its cast of fierce and untethered characters. These are flawed people living flawed lives, with little beyond the horizon except waking up in the morning. As a time capsule of a moment in the UK’s history it is extraordinary; post financial crash, pre austerity, where mobile phones exist but are not omnipresent, where people lived and worked and suffered even before the hardships of the last decade or so, where pejorative slurs like ‘sink estate’ and ‘troubled families’ already scarred entire areas of the country. The film could be seen as a memorial to it (the estate in Havering where the film was shot has now been partially demolished). In that sense Fish Tank deserves its place in the grand cinematic tradition of depicting hard lives without apology, from Cathy Come Home to Rita, Sue, and Bob Too, from Christine and Road all the way up to The Florida Project.
1500 copies only
Special Features & Technical Specs:
- 1080p High-definition presentation on Blu-ray
- NEW Interview with actor Katie Jarvis
- NEW Interview with actor Rebecca Griffiths
- Wasp – short film
- Archival interviews with the cast
- The Dance Scene – featurette
- Stills Gallery
- Theatrical Trailer
- Audio: DTS-HD 5.1 Surround + LPCM 2.0 Mono
- Aspect Ratio 1.33:1
- Optional English HOH Subtitles
The special features are detailed and well compiled, especially the new interviews with Katie Jarvis and Rachel Griffiths. They both speak with unbridled affection for their time making the film, and their love for Andrea Arnold in particular. They discuss how they were cast, how they dealt with their respective roles, and how important the experience has been in their lives going forward. Jarvis reveals just how real some of the scenes in the film are, and how Arnold’s method of only giving the script a week in advance of filming wrongfooted her about where Mia’s story would really go. These recollections match well with the archive interviews and on-set featurette, where everyone speaks highly of Arnold, Ryan and the entire crew. Fassbender has some interesting things to say about his character, which reveals the preparations he went through to find the truth of Conor as he saw it. By far the standout amongst the special features is the inclusion of Arnold’s Oscar-winning short film Wasp from 2003. At just 26 minutes, the film manages to evoke a sense of visceral dread, with its lead actress Natalie Press excelling as a young mother drowning in poverty-stricken distress, even as she tries to court the attentions of Dave (Danny Dyer). It still possesses a shocking power all these years on.
Leave a Reply