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