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. 

Fish Tank: To what extent are your chosen texts typical of their genre?

'Fish Tank' is a social realist film and is very typical of its genre due to the representations and narrative styles that it uses.
One of the ways in which it conforms to its genre is through it's representation of the under-represented, which in this case is the underclass population. It shows a real-life view of the people that tend to be hidden and shunned by society. An example of this would be the small clip at the start of the film that shows the flat block alleyways in front of the apartments and the children running up and down the walkway on one of the floors, showing what life is like for the 'regular' and common people living in Britain.
Another way that 'Fish Tank' is typical of social realism is due to the conventions it uses, specifically the use of handheld camera shots. In a scene towards the end of the film, when Mia 'kidnaps' Keira, the scene shows Mia running after the child. In a different genre, this scene would probably have been shot as a still camera movement but due to the features of this genre, the camera is handheld and moves with her, following her movements as she runs and blurring the landscape as it does so. This makes the shot and the film seem more realistic as this is how the action occurs in real life and makes it feel like more of a documentary than a fictional film. This therefore makes 'Fish Tank' typical of it's genre as social realistic films try to keep as close to reality as they can get.