Fish Tank
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In my opinion (at the risk of generalizing), rebellious teenagers are more equipped to pursue their dreams and make things happen. On the other hand docile teenagers are more likely to go with the flow and end up dormant as the sun is about to set. Now, the reasons for which they may rebel, may seem utterly ridiculous, or may not even be on the right side of morality. But the point here is not the reasons, but the fact that they are arrogantly confident about themselves and are willing to go at loggerheads with everyone. These are qualities one needs to go the distance in the long run. And I believe that Mia, the teenage protagonist of Fish tank, will one day do wonders for herself.
Fish Tank captures those days when we used to give a damn about anything that is uninteresting to us; the days when arrogance was part of our persona and issues like low-self esteem and self-pity were nowhere near the horizon. We were king/queens of our world. All external things posed a threat. And look at nowadays; the threats have now been internalized. We ourselves are the one threatening ourselves. We are constantly fighting with our moods, impulses, desires. Whereas the teenage days was the time to act on our moods impulses and desires without caring a hoot for anything or anybody.
The film is about a 15 yr old foul-mouthed teenager, Mia (Katie Jarvis), who hates everything apart for her time when she dances alone in an unoccupied flat with her CDman belting hip-hop. Her mother is a blonde alcoholic who abuses her whenever she steps in the house. Mia, therefore spends limited time at home. 
She roams around the neighborhood, watching girls dance practicing, buying booze and quite often spends time at a net café surfing for dance videos. Her daily routine is affected when she starts interacting with her mother’s new boyfriend, Connor (Michael Fassbender). She gets infatuated by his presence and uncharacteristically starts hanging around with her mother, her baby sister and him.
The notion of love, when you are a teenager is shallow and confused with infatuation. But whatever it may be, it surely is strong and overpowering. And it makes your world go round. The film depicts this infatuation with so much observation and heart that first time in my life I truly identified with the attraction a girl feels for a man. I was literally in Mia’s shoes, when Connor was around her. His nonchalance towards her and at the same time the protectiveness that he displays for her made him a perfect object of attraction. 
Mia falls for him, and starts visiting him at his workplace, and also occasionally listens to his advice, which is so very uncharacteristic of her.
The film captures the attraction and her initial arrogance towards Connor turning into respect and awe, subtly and beautifully, without any voice-overs or any slow motions of Mia drooling over Connor. That’s what I love about these small indie films. They give me a much needed break from the larger than life romances and dreamy attractive leads. They present real people in real quandaries. And the satisfaction such films give me, is much greater and long lasting than the entertainment the films with broader strokes provide.
Let me take a shot at answering a question “What is good cinematography?” I say, a film can be said to be well shot when the lighting, the framing and the camera movement evokes emotional responses, without the viewer noticing any of the above. The shot should not distract the viewer and thus detach him from the characters. Many a times fancy lighting and camera movements stylizes the shot and gives it a very good aesthetic look, but what is the fuckin use of it if it draws attention of the viewer away from the characters and the story. I owe this perspective to a very knowledgeable friend of mine who shattered my adolescent notions of cinematography.
There is a scene in Fish tank I remember vividly. Connor is seated on a sofa at night watching TV. Mia enters the room. Connor asks her to show him the dance that she has prepared for some upcoming audition. Mia reluctant at first hesitantly gives into his demand and dances onto a number which she had heard the first time in Connor’s car. She dances passionately to the song as if her dance is just meant for Connor. As the song ends, Mia sits besides Connor and slowly they start making out and end up making love on the sofa. And now when I think in retrospect of the shots which made up that scene, I cannot help but appreciate the atmosphere which it builds up with help of a yellow backlight coming through the window from a street lamp. Mia is shot in sexy silhouettes and Connor in dim lit close ups. The tension which slowly builds up as the song proceeds is made very palpable with help of this piece of superb cinematography.
Fish Tank, the title is supposed to symbolize the years when you are trapped in the confine of angst and frustrations. The fish inside surely don’t know that there is a huge ocean out there. But saying this would be looking down upon teenage years as just some clueless years. Sure, the world outside is way bigger and worse than what we imagine in our teenage years, but it also reflects the inherent human tendencies of rebelling for freedom, acting on impulses and desires, boosting the ego and finally loving someone like there is no tomorrow.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Thanks a lot for this! Somehow better posts get so less comments. Anyways, your post compels me to watch this movie!
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Nice Review, Gaurang.I missed this movie at this years MAMI,will try to catch it on dvd.
@Tanul,
I agree with your point that better post get less comments.
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“Fish Tank captures those days when we used to give a damn about anything that is uninteresting to us; the days when arrogance was part of our persona and issues like low-self esteem and self-pity were nowhere near the horizon. We were king/queens of our world. All external things posed a threat. And look at nowadays; the threats have now been internalized. We ourselves are the one threatening ourselves.”
These are simply fantastic line…as i m on the fall of my teenage lyf i can very well relate to it..very nice 1
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Anurag,
Thanks for the kind words.
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IMO self awareness kills the fun. Too much of self awareness never lets you completely immerse yourself in the moment. As teenage fades away and self awareness creeps in, the joy in moments disappear.
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Thanks again for your kind words :-)
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will watch this one… seems i’ll like it tooo
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Really a nice post, one of the best at PFC,would certainly watch this film.
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i haven’t seen the moving bt the last line of ur post “finally loving someone like there is no tomorrow” came into my mouth and it’s salivating inside
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Excellent – both the film and your text, Gaurav. I watched Fish Tank at MAMI and was overwhelmed. The movie – that almost has a feel of a home video – stayed with me for many days and that’s the power of pure cinema.
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I attended MAMI for only 2 days, Friday and Saturday. And only Fish Tank manged to leave any lasting impression. The most disgusting and frustrating movie I saw in those 2 days was Kinatay. Saali chutiya pickchur banate log art ke naam par. Saala khud banao aur khud dekho na!!
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