Fish Tank Case Study

Themes and Situations

Mia the main character of Fish Tank lives in a council estate with her mother and her sister. From the beginning of the movie, there is teenage rivalry and violence. This is a social realist film, so it represents real life with all its difficulties. Mia’s mother is abusive towards her; this shows that she does not know how to take care of her kids. There are many illegal things in this movie, like underage drinking, with Mia and her sister Tyler, there is also underage smoking, Tyler, who is probably about 10 years old is smoking with her friend. Furthermore, there is a scene which includes underage sex, with Mia and Conner. This all comes back to link with British social realism; it represents a teenager’s life in urban surroundings.

Representation

There is a stereotype of Mia’s mum, as a single mum; she would struggle to look after her children. Also, for the audience it is information of how people are and how they live in these suburban areas. But other audience can relate with this film, with the accents, locations, and the behaviour of the characters. But this film gives a bad representation of Barking and Dagenham, which is where this movie is filmed.

Mise-en-scene

The costumes that they wear are chavy cheap clothes, to show lower/working class people. However, Conner wears better clothes, to show that he is more upper class than the others. Throughout the film, it is mostly natural lighting, this keeps to the fact that this is real life. It all ties in with real life situations, to give the audience information.

Music and Sound  

There is diegetic music, when she is listening to the music she dances to. This shows the type of music that young teenagers listen to in this day and age, the music they listen to can also reflect the attitude and behaviour of young teenagers. The non-diegetic sound of the surroundings is used to also create a realistic feel in the film.

Camera Work and Editing

Most of the film, there is a handheld camera, to give shakiness to the picture. This effect is maybe to show that it is not a calm film, that anything can happen at any moment, or it could reflect mia’s personality, because she does not stay in one place, she moves around a lot. There are many point of view shots, to show how the character sees things through their eyes. There are many points where mia is shown from a high angle, to show her vulnerability.

Dialogue

Most of the people have an Essex accent, and the teenagers use slang, which is very common with British teenagers. This is to keep with the realism of the film, to keep with theme of British social realism. Conner has an Irish accent, maybe to separate him from the others, and to give him more class than the others.

Secondary Research

The director of this film is Oscar winner Andrea Arnold. The production companies are; BBC films, UK film council, Limelight Communication, Content Film and Kasander Film Company. They filmed in; Barking, Dagenham, Havering, Stanford, Tilbury and Tower Hamlets, which are mostly, rough urban areas to stick with the theme of the movie. The film has won many awards, which includes the BAFTA film award and the British Independent film award. In the UK, the film made £103,108 and in the US it made $32,619. The marketing strategy was that they mainly used the internet to advertise their film as they needed to keep costs low.      (Source: IMDB)

In my opening sequence I would use, natural lighting to give a realistic feel. Maybe music that the audience can relate to, and simple camera work and editing to give a hard and gritty effect.