Fish Tank
What a performance ! I still have tears in my eyes. The dance at the end with mom and little sis is as real as British Realism gets. Forget Bullet Boy and its ilk with their clichés and efforts at trying too hard to be street and cool. Anyone over the age of 16 can’t seem to do it, and the wannabe cool crew are so tied up in their own mystique that they disappear in their own narcissistic reflections. This is the real deal. You live this film with Mia and her angst and pain is tangible and believable. Some wrong notes at the start made me wonder if the director could pull off such a difficult task but Andrea Arnold delivers as utterly un-butterly believable an authentic a revelation of modern British urban life as we can get. It does not take long to get immersed in Mia’s myopic world. I was thinking, ‘ could a man have made a film as sensitive and could a man have been able to coax a performance of such stunning empathy. Almost as if it was not acting. Uncomfortable watching throughout as you could touch it , feel it. I felt the claustrophobia of the urban space as seen through Mia’s eyes and was seduced by the charm of Micheal Fassbender as Mia and her Mother are.
But it’s all about the girl. If ever you want to understand the modern malaise facing British youth and the challenges they face here it is laid bare but with the hope, faith and optimism that is the essence of youth so often missed in the dreary humdrum representation of young peoples lives. Utterly cynical and falling into all kinds of cheap stereotypes of the ‘Little Britain’ variety Mia transcends the pigeonhole with her lust for life and dreams which she refuses to have shattered. It is the high expectations of life which make young people so cynical, defensive and insecure manifesting itself in rage and lashing out. It’s not a lack of hope it’s the desire to live and burn brightly. This is not a film about urban blight and deprivation and ruined lives, it transcends that with hope and aspiration. Mia still believes in love and although she learns some hard lessons it is not her that is shattered, she comes of age with her dreams intact just a little wiser. The indictment is of those who should know better but refuse to grow up. This is broken Britain. Short term kicks feed a need to risk all you have for the unknown. Unfortunately for some Arnold has got modern British men down to a tee, maybe the most honest portrayal of the predatory nature of men. Years ago this may have been a norm and almost to be boasted about, nowadays its called grooming and paedophilia but the honesty of the performances make it hard watching for all, a salutary lesson to any middle age men who have a weird knowledge of their appeal to the vulnerable to watch their step, they can’t run amok without consequences.
Its all in the dance, it expresses so much. Non verbal communication, the sounds of breath and the movement of limbs. A subtle slowing of movement suggests more Lynne Ramsay than Ken Loach. Perhaps there is a different eye and a different perspective dependent on the gender of the director. A sensitivity to performance particularly of female characters. Fassbender is a great actor and Hunger is another great British film but how do you get someone with no acting experience to perform like this. Maybe that is the answer. Keep it real. Some unforgettable moments live with the audience, on finding out Conor’s real status actions speaking so much louder than words. This is where the visual medium comes into its own. They say film cannot do metaphor but the message is in the medium. Even the sex is perfunctory and all too realistic. It feels like a cliché but the strength of the action is that you really feel, uncomfortably, that you are there. How do you get people to act that, they must intrinsically know and that is the humanity of the film. You feel what Mia feels and it does not relent. Forget 3D; Andrea Arnold lets us live the life of 15 year old Mia. The sudden cut at the end feels like a blackout as this film is as close to whatever 4D may feel like as it gets.
