TIFF Hangover: Fish Tank.
Sleep deprivation in 2009 would probably have made me wonder ‘What is this HORSE doing in Fish Tank?!’ But the day before this year’s festival’s kickoff might be the perfect time to watch this to prepare for Michael Fassbender and Andrea Arnold‘s new works. This movie also has the funniest one liners and might be the only Criterion that features a Cassie song.
Nick wrote that Katie Jarvis should have been nominated for an Oscar, which my friends doubted because she was playing ‘herself’ here. I’ll never know what ‘herself’ is, but it’s probably the only time I’ll see an actress convey emotion even when her back is towards the camera. Her performance, the imagery and even the horse adds to its novelistic feel.
Okinawa Assault 
Fish Tank to me felt like a grittier version of An Education
September 21, 2011 at 11:24 am
I can see that. Also, this movie is better than the underwhelming An Education.
September 21, 2011 at 12:19 pm
I loved An Education, wasn’t a fan of this. I can’t remember specifically what it was in it that put me off – too lazy to check my review – but I do really vaguely that it felt to be on the wrong side of subtle to the point of seeming almost aimless to me. I get that she’s going for something akin to realism but it doesn’t really work to me. The actress playing her mother, though, was brilliant I thought.
September 26, 2011 at 7:36 pm
Fish Tank is coarse, I’ll give the movie that. That might turn some people off. It turns me off the way others use it (Scorsese’s lesser films). I don’t know why it works here. Maybe it’s the wordless transitions. And I think the the urban context is lively enough for me to tolerate the realism. I’m not sure about the aimless – it’s the typical ‘girl who wants to get out of dodge’ narrative but we really believe why she wants to do such a thing.
Also, I don’t remember the mother other than being capable and functional.
September 28, 2011 at 2:20 am