Fish Tank

[MacGuffin]

Trailer here.

Release Date: January 15, 2010

Starring: Katie Jarvis, Michael Fassbender, Kierston Wareing, Harry Treadaway and Jack Gordon

Directed by: Andrea Arnold

Premise: Fifteen-year-old Mia is in a constant state of war with her family, her school and her neighbors, without any constructive creative outlet for her energies save a secret love of hip-hop dancing. When she meets her party-girl mother's charming new boyfriend Connor, she is amazed to find him returning her attention, and believes he can help her start to make sense of her life - though his seemingly tender demeanor may hide a much more treacherous interior.

[RegularKarate]

This could be good, but that is a terrible trailer.  It's like they're trying to translate a British movie into "American" in that trailer.

[Reinhold]

i thought this film was really beautifully shot. i'm still not sure what i think of it from a story standpoint. i'd recommend seeing it though

[I Love a Magician]

definitely in my amended top 5 of 2009

Check It Out!

[Captain of Industry]

SPOILER.

Do you think the thriller aspect is superfluous, and unnecessarily causes energy to be burnt?  She took the girl to hurt him, but I felt like the film was running away from me.  I like to think of the critical water moment as an inversion of the Frankenstein set-up:  he makes her near monstrosity, and she comes close to simply imitating his lesson of indifference, but she exercises her intelligence and volition (and compassion) by rescuing the girl from the water.  I haven't read any interviews stating this was the intention.  It's the most I can make of the scene on my own.

Also, it's emotionally blunt.  And its symbolism is sometimes ostentatious.  But then, who'd have thought I'd be near tears over the use of Life's a Bitch?

[md]

Spoils

Yeah a long way to go with no punch.  First off, how can you be sympathetic towards characters who all act as if they are 15?  The little sister acts mouthy and bold enough to be the lead's age, the mother acts as stupid and irresponsible as the lead, even the good guy boyfriend ends up being a wanking pedophile.  That's one smelly pedophile if you think about it.  And although the cinema verite look might have been aesthetically appealing at first, it shouldn't warrant out of focus and grainy footage.  That's just sloppy filmmaking. I thought it may have been a micro budget and the production was just getting by, but 3 million can pay for Fassbender and in focus shots.  The ending was surprisingly fitting though, with the three women dancing.  I could hear the sniffles in the audience.  but overall, go see Precious if you want a gritty in your face movie. 

[I Love a Magician]

First off, how can you be sympathetic towards characters who all act as if they are 15?

it's easy

[md]

First off, how can you be sympathetic towards characters who all act as if they are 15?

it's easy

[I Love a Magician]

That's a big button!

[I Love a Magician]

i bet a lot of the budget went to the music

[Captain of Industry]

Anyway...I didn't think the filmmaking was bad so much as predictable and, as I said, emotionally blunt.  The tracking shot out of the apartment the morning after their event, when the mother was crying in the room, was a completely sensible and by-the-book tracking shot, just like the floating balloon at the end is a totally solid symbol and punctuation for the journey's end.

When I think about A Prophet, The White Ribbon, and Fish Tank (the three big winners at Cannes last year) I think about films that reflect back on certain filmmaking traditions and principles.  It seems to me that they express a state of transition in the art of filmmaking, and a need to assess virtues and pathways and priorities, and I think they're statements of thirst and hunger.

[Stefen]

I don't think I liked this very much. It was good, it just left a lot to be desired. By the end of it, I just felt let down. Maybe it's a grower.

It looked great. Acting was solid and the music was TOP-KNOTCH. It was just missing something with the story.

It was also kind of weird to watch a modern movie filmed in 1.33:1. I don't see that often. It made me realize how much more cinematic films really feel in 1.85:1 and especially 2.39:1

Spoilers
The characters are just awful people for the most part. It did white trash a lot better than The Fighter did. Granted, it's British white trash, but still... I kept waiting for some sort of redemption or for these characters to make nice but they never really do. They just keep being awful people. I about turned it off when Connor had sex with the 15 year old Katie. And then I about turned it off again near the end where Katie threw Connor's daughter into the raging water. The attempts to try and make Katie into a sympathetic human being by having her have a soft spot for animals just didn't work on me. She was a little shit.

[Reel]

I remember turning it off before the rape happened too. I knew it would crush my soul. I figured if that's something that goes down, I don't wanna see how this movie ends. I might have to watch it again sometime.. it was really good up until then.


On a side note, anybody seen Wasp? another crazy white trash british movie, I'm pretty sure it's a short though..

[wilder]

Wasp kicks the ass of every other short I've seen, but I haven't seen many. Natalie Press is an actress who is really underused.