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To really enjoy Fish Tank (2009) its best to know nothing at all about the film save the general context and milieu. However most of the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes contain major spoilers. (Roger Ebert's 4 star review gives away 90% of the film.) I'll just say that it's about a 15 year old girl who lives with her little sister and her 32 year old mother in a high rise housing estate in Essex. It's a State of England movie of the type that they don't really make anymore. This is not nice, safe, heritage cinema, which will get a wide audience: a real shame because Fish Tank is a wonderful film and the best thing British cinema has done in years. Visual, affecting, emotional and beautiful, this is grown up cinema, amazingly shot, without music, with a hand-held camera in natural light, much of it during the golden hour. Fish Tank doesn't feel minimalist or experimental: the story is far too gripping for that. And its a million miles away from the horrible upper middle class phoniness of Notting Hill or Four Weddings And A Funeral or the Harry Potter films. This also is England the way she is now not the way she used to be in the time of EM Forster or Jane Austen. This is life for many many people, the kind of people whose stories don't get told in films that aren't dull witted genre pieces. On the basis of this one picture I can tell that Andrea Arnold, the director, is an incredible talent and Katie Jarvis is a charismatic and powerful leading actress. According to BoxOfficeMojo almost no one saw Fish Tank despite the fact that it won BAFTAs and a Special Jury Prize at Cannes. It was ignored completely by the Oscars whereas the cheesy heritage cinema special The Kings Speech won Best Picture. This tells you everything you need to know about the value of an Oscar and nothing about Fish Tank.
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Anyway do yourself a favour and rent it. Just 1) don't complain if its too rough for you (you have been - obliquely - warned) and 2) dont spend twenty minutes fiddling about with the aspect ratio (like me) cos I think its supposed to look like that.
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When you're done with the movie (and only when you're done) check out David Denby's review, here, Roger Ebert's review, here, and Peter Bradshaw's review, here.
46 comments:
I agree - I just saw fishtank last week - don't know why it took me so long. I think I was worried about it being depressing, which is was, but there was also beauty and power and humanity (!) there. It also went to places I didn't expect ... which is so rare these days... I now have to see the red road ...
Wonderful film. Some 'heart in mouth' moments.
Thanks. Def on the top of my "must watch" list. Now, I need to catch up with your S5 Madmen posts. I have really enjoyed it so far, which is good because S4 was a bit of a let down.
Fish Tank funded by Tourism For Britain. Films like Notting Hill are good for tourism.
I spoke to an American lady on her hols who was surprised at the racial demographic in London. I blame that Hugh Grant you know.
I had no idea about this movie. Love the premise. You can't expect great movies to get some Oscars love though. Good movies, decent movies, but great? Never, or at least not anymore.
I'm sure the DVD will be out soon with Fassbender's mug all over the cover.
Just the kind of movie I used to go down and see at the Indie house here. Thanks for the rec.
Ha! I just saw this a few weeks ago and was blown away by its raw, kitchen sink realism, to coin a phrase.
Of course films like this fail to achieve box office success as they veer away from 'safe' portrayals of English life and that is sad.
Without drawing too many comparisons it reminded me of some of Mike Leigh's earlier efforts.
Good review and I wholeheartedly agree..go and see it folks!
Sean
S5 has been better whereas Game of Thrones hasnt been so brilliant.
Frankie
Yup good for tourism but not really good for us.
Ben
Check it out and let me know what you think of it, eh?
Matt
Yeah Fassbender's exploding right now isnt he? He was so good in Fish Tank I have to say that I'll have a hard disassociating him from his character.
Seana
It works just fine on DVD.
Dan
Yeah early Mike Leigh or very early Ken Loach. Yet somehow more visually arresting than either of them.
Even I thought of Art of Fielding as a possible contender for the Pulitzer, and I haven't even read it yet. We were a bit stunned and even riled at the news at the store today,partly because some of the staff had read and loved Swamplandia, but also because it seems impossible that there was nothing worthy of the prize from 2011.
The last Pulitzer fiction winner was Geraldine Brooks' March which wasn't, I hope, her best work.
And the news was that the last time the Pulitzer committee decided that the fictional field was unworthy of consideration was 1977, when they decided A River Runs Through It wasn't up to the mark...
I meant to say that March was the last Pulitzer winner I'd read.
Seana
I havent read the others but The Art of Fielding is the best American novel I've read in three or four years so I would have been happy if that had won.
I have to say that the contrary side of my personality is making me want to read the three rejects now.
Seana,
I thought PEOPLE OF THE BOOK was Brook's best work, considerably better than MARCH, which was a good idea, but not a good reality. Interestingly, Louisa May Alcott's father was a prolific abolitionist writer. I thought PEOPLE one of the best I've read in a while. Her later CALEB'S CROSSING disappointed me.
My favorite American novel in years was CUTTING FOR STONE.
Jean
Seana,
I thought PEOPLE OF THE BOOK was Brook's best work, considerably better than MARCH, which was a good idea, but not a good reality. Interestingly, Louisa May Alcott's father was a prolific abolitionist writer. I thought PEOPLE one of the best I've read in a while. Her later CALEB'S CROSSING disappointed me.
My favorite American novel in years was CUTTING FOR STONE.
Jean
Seana
Well Swamplandia at least sounds interesting.
Jean
Cutting for Stone sounds good. Always been oddly fascinated by Ethiopia.
Check out her Red Road and her down and dirty Wuthering Heights.
Anon
I definitely will.
Yes I agree with Anonymous: check out Red Road. Fab film. Listen you should put Cold Ground up for the newly [yesterday] announced Gordon Burn prize. It's £5000; you may as well have it. I found details on Newwritingnorth.com.
Kikaren
Ooh sounds good I'll check it out. David Peace is one of the judges.
Excellent film. The ending wasn't far from the truth about the current state of Katie Jarvis's film career - which is, to date, virtually non-existant. I think she wasn't given enough help towards capitalizng on the attention the part of Mia was bringing her. I really want to see her in another feature film.
JD
Wow I'm really sorry to hear that about Katie Jarvis. She was so good in this. She completely knocked my socks off. I hope an understanding manager or agent takes her on and gets her more roles.
nice opinion. thanks for posting.
Old Joy is another sad, fine Reichardt film.
M. Williams is so talented.
Liked Red Road. Hope to see Fassbender and Fish Tank soon.
Anon
I'm going to have to catch more of Reichardts work cos I loved Wendy and Lucy.
Yeah, I have to third or fourth that Cutting for Stone was a brilliant book.
From what you say about Fish Tank I'm reminded of the film Girlstown with the excellent Lily Taylor. I'll have to check the film out tout de suite.
I rolled through Detroit again on the way back from Chicago at the end of this summer, and last night I saw a couple of terrific documentaries on the city. The first, Detropia:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRce1KFsH-g
And from the BBC, this one which you can see in its entirety on youtube, part one here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRo4lIkkAbU&feature=relmfu
As Adrian says of Fish Tank and England, this is the Real America.
Detropia looks great, Matt.
I am predicting that Detroit will have a renaissance, but it won't look like anything we're familiar with now.
Sheiler
Did you ever see I shot Andy Warhol? She was great in that.
Matt
Gonna watch those tonight.
I'm not going to drink this though which I almost bought:
http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/132/72720
Seana
A city that size surely cant become a ghost town. I'll bet there are half a million people in Eastern Europe or Mexico who would love to move there and create something.
Or maybe they'll just cross on over from Canada.
Yep - I loved I Shot Andy Warhol. Lily Taylor became my favorite actress as a result ... and then Six Feet Under happened and I didn't love her so much, not from her acting but the lameness of her character, thus exposing the lameness of the fan.
Like Matt I did a drive through Detroit on my way to Chicago on two Christmases. The worst place to drive ever, soul crushing and then boring. I'd been spoiled by scenery of NH and Vermont on my drives from Boston to Montreal. Really, the best views aside from driving into Colorado (but you have to suffer a lot if you're, say, driving from Boston, through flat farmland).
A friend in Abu Dhabi told me that there was talk among certain Arab rulers of propping up Detroit to be a model green city since it's in dire shape and since there's a large Arab population there.
On a side note, Rodriguez was on 60 Minutes tonight. Sure it's up on their website.
Thanks, Matt--there was still time to see it out here,Pacific Time. I had heard a little about that film at a discussion group I go to, but had forgotten about it.
It does confirm what you say about luck, Adrian. Although it also says that you never know when you're luck's going to kick in...
Sheiler
I kept seeing Taylor as the "sensible best friend" in awful romantic comedies. Hollywood didnt know what to do with her clearly.
Seana
I always think of Herman Melville whose luck kicked in forty years after he was dead.
Matt
Sorry Sixty Minutes was on the same time as the Yankees game in this time zone.
You can still watch it here.
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