My Brother the Devil (Sally El Hosaini.2012)

My brother the devil is a film written by Sally El Hosaini, who is a female director that won the best European film and Grand Jury award at the BFI London Film Festival in 2012 (the time of the film made). It is a British film, the genre of this film is drama and this is a social realism urban story. The themes that run through this film are family, love, violence, conflict, innocence, religion, revenge and anger. The contrasts of the themes innocence and guilt are portrayed by both the brothers, Mo and Rash, throughout the film.


The main scene is focused my review on was when the gangs meet up and attempt to attack each other. Demon, the gang leader of the rival gang shows his authority when the camera focuses on him in this scene. His dog foreshadows the violence of this scene.  The absence of light presents the darkness, gloomy and dangerous atmosphere that is about to happen and the sound is diegetic; all dialogue, but when the dog got stabbed there was also an absence of sound, suggesting this dog was meant to die. Demon screams out and without hesitation stabs, Rash’s best friend, and lies dead on the floor. This scene is powerful as it indicates the death of the gang member and rival dog are the same, that these boys in the gangs are inhumane, treated like dogs and have no life of their own. Rash was the last one to stay and watch his best friend on the floor, eventually ran away, which suggests when he ran was when he hit reality.

My Brother the Devil was directed by Sally El Hosaini. Sally El Hosanini won “ Best European Film ” ,“Best Newcomer”, “Best Screenplay” at the BAFTAs. My Brother the Devil is set in London. The genre of My Brother is The Devil is drama. It is socially realistic.

In the opening scene before the film start it shows pictures of real life men, which suggests that this film is based on a real story. Then the film starts and the first scene shows Rash boxing, which suggests his superiority, leadership qualities and that he is strong. It also shows Mo, the youngest brother, signing his school shirts, which presents his vulnerability, that he is young, and has no acknowledgment of the world, or what is up-coming in the film. After this the images are shown again and one by is pictured with what look like drugs which give us an insight to what these boys lives may be like.

Compare and Comparison of Wasp(Andrea Arnold.2003) and Soft (Simon Ellis.2007)

Compare and Comparison of Wasp (Andrea Arnold.2003) and Soft (Simon Ellis.2007)

Wasp and Soft are two short films that are socially realistic. Both of the films are the same genre (drama). Both of the films give an insight of how life is in the working class world, which makes both films socially realistic.  

 

The opening scene of Soft starts off with conflict; Scott is being bullied by a group of young people from his area. The opening scene of wasp also starts off with a conflict, Zoë along with her children make the journey to confront a woman that was looking after her kid. Both films begin with a violent form of conflict. 

It could be argued that Zoë is the antagonist for the reason that she is extremely lenient with her children, allowing them to fall into trouble & struggles. However it could also be argued that she is the protagonist because despite all the struggles she is going through and all the things she is missing out she will still do anything for her kids. Similarly it could be argued that Scott’s father (Lain) could be the antagonist because he doesn’t defend his son, neither does he teach him how to defend himself, stopping him from being the man that he should be in order to protect himself. However you could say that Lain is the protagonist because he too is a victim in this situation. It seems as if when Lain was younger he too was bullied, resulting to him acting the way he did.

The difference between the two films is the structure of the storyline. In Wasp, the structure of the storyline is linear. There is a bad beginning and a happy ending, what the audience expected to happen happened. That the guy Zoë wanted to see (Dave) ended up helping Zoë and her kids. This happens in the last scene when they are all in the car eating their chips. However in Soft the structure of the storyline is non-linear. It starts off with a bad beginning with Scott being bullied relying on his Father to protect him, the Father then is interrogated by the same group of people that bullied Scott, instead of Lain to defend the both of them, he backs down and encourages Scott to ignore them. As Lain and Scott are provoked more and more Lain decides to walk outside and attempts to stand up for himself. Lain’s attempt to shoo them away like a fly fails, they provoke him even more. Surprisingly Scott comes with a cricket bat, and hits the antagonist ( ASBO) in the head. This is not what the audience would of predicted to happen. The director (Simon Ellis) could of done this to emotionally provoke the audience.

 

The fact that both films  are socially realistic, is done to bring awareness to a form of a lifestyle that is experienced in some young people’s life in Britain. There are some young people living through poverty, these films bring awareness of this.

                                                                                                                                                                                              

FISH TANK ANALYSIS (2009)

Fish Tank. Andrea Arnold (2009)

Fish Tank is a film made by Andrea Arnold. Andrea Arnold is a British film maker and a former actress, who has made the films: Wasp (2003) and Red Road (2006). These films including Fish Tank are socially-realistic. The status of the majority of the characters in these films are working class people. The storyline of these films based on the characters’ statuses is what makes these films socially realistic. It is quite a coincidence that most of Andrea Arnold’s films are based on working class people in Britain, this is because Andrea Arnold’s parents were working class people. She understands the experiences she creates for her  characters’ in her film at first hand. Due to the fact that Fish Tank consists of different themes such as conflict, love & anger, these factors make Fish Tank a drama.

Fish Tank shows the life of a teenager by the name of Mia who has aspirations to dance. However Mia’s life isn’t ideal as she lives with her mother who is irresponsible. Mia is always having conflict with her mother, we see this when Mia’s mother forces Mia to go to school, which alerts the audience that Mia is a young girl around the ages of 11-16. All of these set backs that Mia goes through in her life makes us understands why Andrea Arnold named this film Fish Tank, this could be a metaphor which represents Mia’s life. It represents her in a way that she is being trapped in a confined area, and that confined area for Mia is the setbacks in her life that she has to live through everyday.

In most of Andrea Arnold’s films she tends to have a female protagonist, which could mean that the fact that she uses social realism and female protagonists could imply that she is representing herself as a person, mainly when she was a teenager.

In some cases Andrea Arnold expresses her experiences through Fish Tank. When Andrea Arnold was younger she danced on a show called ‘Top Of The Pops”, she made a comment that she never felt comfortable in front of the camera. Which is a coincidence because when Connor (Michael Fassbender) asks Mia to dance for him you get the sense that she is not comfortable. Also when Mia is about to audition when the music starts to play, you see again by the way the camera closes up to her face, you can clearly see her expression of confusion, she doesn’t want to dance in front of people. Andrea Arnold allows herself to live through Mia in Fish Tank.

There is this sense of hope for Mia, which is felt by the audience, even though Mia is living in hardship, you can see that she aspires to change this and make a better life for herself and come out of this fish tank that she is in. This is expressed when Mia packs her belonging and leaves the estate, with no intention of coming back.

Mia, her mum and her little sister are all similar and this is expressed when Mia’s mum is heart broken and she is dancing to one of Mia’s songs from her playlist and Mia and her little sister join her, at this point you get this feeling that dancing plays a very big role in their lives. It is a way in which they cope. Whenever they feel low they dance their pain away.

Florence Kemilembe