Tuesday 10 December 2013

Social-Realism in Fish Tank

FishTank is typical of its social-realism genre due to the character roles, narrative themes, technical conventions and mise-en-scene and iconography it uses. These all work together in order to create emotions and communicate the narrative of the text.

One of the typical character roles it fills is that of the non-nuclear, dysfunctional family. This is evident in the four-minute clip that we viewed that clearly portrays the cold and unhappy relationship that Mia and her mother have. In the scene where they dance, just before Mia leaves, she goes into their living room to say goodbye to her family. However, rather than the expected hugs, kisses and good wishes for the future that the audience were hoping Mia would get, her mother is quite harsh and short with her, asking her "what she's waiting for" and then continues to tell her to "fuck off". This displays the lack of emotion she feels towards her daughter, and the fact that she's leaving, and draws more attention to the broken relationship between Mia and her mother. 

Another way it conforms to the social-realism genre is through the narrative themes that it employs and explores. The text runs at a slow pace, taking time and expanding shots longer than typical mainstream films in order to present the idea that the film is more realistic. Evidence of this is in the scene where Mia, her mother, and her younger sister dance to a song on the stereo. While this scene shows the only moment in the text where Mia's family seems to function without any male involvement, the dance starts to become repetitive, as the text isn't cut where the audience expects it to be and therefore seems to last for a long time. This is relative to real-life as the dance and movements they do are allowed to take their full time, rather than being cut short, and giving another depth of realism to the text.

FishTank also uses a number of technical conventions that allow it to fall into the social-realism genre well. One of the techniques it uses is showing action and movements from Mia's perspective. For example, when Mia is leaving in the car, she turns her head to look of the rear-window and the shot cuts to show Tyler, her younger sister, running behind the car and then waving to say goodbye. It puts the audience in the eyes of the main protagonist and allows them to take on her emotion. 

1 comment:

  1. Good introduction to the text, perhaps make it slightly longer with a background to the context, actors and directors? Very good exam technique by applying conventions to narrative descriptions, which are nice a concise. Maybe add a conclusion to summarise final points (don't worry i know you probably ran out of time), add a theory and perhaps to audience type and the role they take. Really good use of terminology, which reflections in your structure which is really good, and nice to read. Well Done :)

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