Posts Tagged ‘Andrea Arnold’
Fish Tank *****
Mia (the mesmerizing Katie Jarvis) is a typical 15 year-old girl who lives with her single mother Joanne (Kierston Wareing), little sister Tyler (the extraordinarily authentic Rebecca Griffiths) and their innocuous dog, Tennents. These girls, to borrow from Peter Bradshaw, “have learned from their mother mannerisms of pre-emptive scorn and rage to cover up perennially hurt feelings”. But Mia has dreams, fulfillable desires which afford her an optimism that shines out of this bleak suburban London landscape. She dreams of freeing a beautiful, gaunt mare chained to breeze-block by her owners, two intimidating and obnoxious young men and their more benign brother; of escaping her body, her emotions and her life through modern dance, the compulsion through which she bares her soul; of intimacy, fatherly or sexual, to free deep untapped reserves of passion. Yet all measures to these ends are misdirected, falter or come to nought.
Fish Tank is an extraordinary, touching, melancholic film in which Andrea Arnold manages to execute some of the harder tropes of social-realism with a tone of honest optimism, yet without resorting to a hint of sentimentality or cliché. There is beautifully choreographed photography, playing heavily on stark contrasts (though I would contend that the vast openness of the outdoors, set against often claustrophobic interior, manifests just as threatened and crumbling a beauty as in the life and soul of Mia). The city is never-ending, as we follow over Mia’s shoulder along broken sidewalks, across flyovers, the towers always behind and cars in the foreground. The only real escape from the sprawl comes in the form of a trip to the countryside with mum’s boyfriend, Connor (Michael Fassbender, whose tremendous performance appears so effortless as to become invisible).
EIFF Awards 2009
Today, the award winners of the 63rd Edinburgh International Film Festival were announced in a public ceremony at the Filmhouse Cinema, by artistic directors Hannah McGill and Diane Henderson, alongside patrons Sir Sean Connery and Seamus McGarvey.
The big prize, the Michael Powell Award (Best New British Feature Film) was inaugurated in 1993, and is supported by the UK Film Council. It was adjudicated this year by an international jury comprising Joe Wright (director of Atonement), Claudia Puig (film critic), Sacha Horler (actress in My Year Without Sex), Janet Street-Porter (journalist, author) and finally, Frank Langella (most recently starring in Frost/Nixon). Edifyingly, they deigned to select Duncan Jones’s majestic first feature, Moon. The jury citation went as follows: “We award MOON for its singular vision and remarkably assured direction as well as for the inspired manner in which it transcends genre. The central performance by Sam Rockwell embodies the film’s emotional complexity and compelling philosophical perspective”.
