(Pre-Production) Analysing Fish Tank

Fish Tank

I have watched the film Fish Tank and analysed how it conforms to the conventions of British Social Realism. The film follows, in a documentary style, a 15 year old girl through her day to day life living on a council estate in barking.

Fish Tank is a 2009 British drama film directed by Andrea Arnold.

Themes & Situations

Growing up & aspirations: 
- Mia wanting to get out of Barking and be a dancer.
- Kids on estate playing football and practising dance routines
- Mia getting into fights
- Bulling (from mother and other kids)
- Having sexual intercourse of the first time
- First boyfriend
- Mia's aspiration to do better for herself


Race, Ethnicity & Cultural Tensions:
- Mostly an all white cast
- Gypsy life - criminals?
- Conner is Irish - his accent makes him stand out


Social class:
- Under class - Mia's mum does not work
- working class - Conner
- Having little money to spare
- turning to petty theft/ Mia steals money out of Conner's purse.


Violence:
- Mia & mother having physical fights
- Swearing
- Threats
- Bad parenting?

 Sexuality:
- Sexual liberation - Mother's parties
- Mia's first time - with Conner!
- Pedophile - Conner


Gender roles & relationships:
- Mia lives without her father
- Conner acts as if he is her dad - Mia gets annoyed at this
- Conner & Mia's mum - relationship or just sexual intercourse?
- Mia's hate of her environment - tries to free horse from Gypsy land


Addiction:
- Mia's mum alcoholic? - Drinks early in morning




Representation (Stereotypes + archetypes)

Teenagers & Children:
-seen as rebellious, violent, criminals, bad mouthed, rude and being involved in gangs. (Stereotypical)
- Playing football/ dancing - Having aspirations (Positive representation)
- Bad role models - Mia's sister tries to cope her (Negative representation)
- Brought up badly - Mia's little sister & friend smoking and drinking (Negative representation)
- Caring about animal well fair - Gypsy horse (Positive)

Working class life:

- Hardship (Stereotypical)

- live in ruff area (Stereotypical)

- Families have no respect for one another (Negative)

- Parents not raising their children properly (Negative) 

Mise-en-scene

- Ruff estate
- Characters mostly in tracksuits (cost 20 pound)
- Straightened hair (stereotypical east London girl)
- Small flat - lack of money
- Cluttered house
- Natural lighting (Realistic)
- Dirty environment - graffiti, chewing gum on floor
- Shorting clothing - lack of respect for themselves
- Social worker - covered up
- Tattoos




Music & Sound effects

- Hip-hop music
- James Brown - California dreaming
- Mostly diegetic sound (realistic)
- Ambient sound - cars, machinery (Fords factory), Shouting and talking around neighbourhood/estate




Camera work & Editing

- Establishing shot - out of Mia's window in house onto overview of barking estate
- Pan of environment
- Blurred - shows Mia's state of mind when drinking
- Close-up - Mia's sister drinking & smoking/ pans to children's stickers on wall
- Little special effects (Realistic)
- Mostly unnoticeable editing and camera work (Flows/ Realistic)




Dialogue

- Swearing "Bitch" "Cunt"
- Conner - Irish accent
- Everyday conversations - "If you could come back as any animal what would it be?"
- Most characters have east London accent and dialect
- " Are you a pikey?"
- Social worker - uses no slang, posh accent, calm, friendly tone (Represented as more well off than Mia's family)


Extras that helped with my analyse of Fish TankTwo definitions of social realism really helped me to understand what i was looking for when analysing Fish Tank. These were:


'Social Realism in films is representative of real life, with all it's difficulties. The stories and people portrayed are everyday characters, usually from working class backgrounds. Typically, films within the social realist canon are gritty, urban dramas about the struggle to survive the daily grind'
- Michelle Strozykowski (2008)




'Social Realism, also known as Socio-Realism, is a film movement, which depicts social and racial injustices, economic hardship, through unvarnished pictures of life's struggles; often depicting working class activities as heroic or significant.'
- Unknown (2005)

This is the analyses sheet (Split into two sections) that i filled out whilst watching Fish Tank: