Thoughtful film criticism
Glaucorama (on Fish Tank, Andrea Arnold, UK, 2009)
The French have a word to describe depressing (sub)urban areas: glauque.
Glauque might typically be used to describe a small town that has little in the way of variety, little in the way of culture, little nowadays in the way of industry, too. Just a population that strives not to be bored in a place that would destroy the motivation of a tyrant. Only drinking and similar pastimes emerge to counter the boredom - if you can afford the booze. A whole community bored. But it's still a place to call home.
Andrea Arnold's new film, Fish Tank (pronounced 'fee-shtonk' by the French), is set in the Mardyke, near Thurrock, in Essex. The town, and more particularly the estate where 15-year old Mia (Katie Jarvis), her little sister and her mother (Kierston Wareing, still excellent after her great work in It's a Free World... (Ken Loach, UK/Italy/Germany/Spain/Poland, 2007)) live is definitely glauque.
For Mia spends her time trying to cadge money to buy cheap teenage cider and dancing on her own in an abandoned apartment higher up the block. Her mother is somewhat neglectful and angry; Mia is in trouble with the police for her violent behaviour; and her sister's mouth is full of words you've never read in the Bible.
Enter Connor (Michael Fassbender, he of Hunger (Steve McQueen, UK/Ireland, 2008) and Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, Germany/USA/France, 2009) fame). Good looking and charming, he takes a shine to Mia, encouraging her to dance, to be herself. And Mia takes a shine to him, a shine that ends up in a drunken fumble on the mother, Joanne's, sofa late one night.
Besotted with Connor, Mia tracks him down one day to find that he in fact is married with a kid. Mia disrupts Connor's apartment before kidnapping his daughter and bullying her through the Mardyke, a wind-swept lake of sorts into which the daughter falls. Mia manages to save her and returns her home and, after a most brief show-down with Connor, leaves for Wales with her 'pikey' new boyfriend, Billy (Harry Treadaway, who has recently been seen in the wholly under-rated Brothers of the Head (Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe, UK, 2005), the rated Control (Anton Corbijn, UK/USA/Australia/Japan, 2007), and the perhaps over-rated City of Ember (Gil Kenan, USA, 2008)).
Arnold's style is, similar to her previous and edgy film, Red Road (UK/Denmark, 2006), social realist or quasi-documentary: lots of handheld tracking shots through the estate, coupled with relatively well composed and atmospheric exterior shots of the Essex countryside, and tight framing suggesting a moral as well as literal claustrophobia with the interiors.
Connor's Irish charm is presented as an exotic break from the glaucorama that otherwise surrounds the lives of these characters, as Mia dreams of escape by making it as a nightclub dancer. She is enabled in this endeavour by Connor, who lends her his camcorder so that she can make a tape of herself. Mia, pretending to be older than she is (she is supposed to be 18 to work in the club), is definitely wary of the power of images and how one mediates oneself, not least because she sneaks into cybercafés to see the other dancers around and the latest moves that they have posted on YouTube.
But when Mia goes to a live audition, she does not have the nerve to go through with it when she realises that she will basically be ogled on a platform in a form of quasi- if not literal prostitution. In other words, the film presents a tension between Mia's knowing and canny positioning of herself as object of desire, while also not being a part of the adult world in which, however problematically, women's bodies seem to be bought and sold. And it is this tension, which is based upon Mia's growing awareness of her body, that makes of Fish Tank a compelling 'coming of age' story - in which finally she might gain independence, perhaps notably by a move to Wales.
It is perhaps important that it is Connor who gives Mia the camera with which she records herself: for all of his charm, Connor acts as no more than an extension of a male-governed system of the the gaze at and objectification of women. On a 'family' trip to a disused fishing lake, Connor might well be able to catch fishes with his bare hands (a moment that has strong sexual undertones - made most clear when Mia cuts her foot and bleeds while with him in the water), but his liberating capacities are inseparable from the violence that he also performs on those with whom he comes into contact. Not that Mia or Joanne should end up with Connor, but whatever exoticism he offers is chimerical since he is a sex tourist who may flaunt his own body, but who in so doing makes other flaunt theirs as well. Some ambiguity: Connor may be a shit and may do wrong by both mother and daughter, but one senses that they are perhaps stronger as a result.
But then maybe Mia was stronger all along. Not least in the sense that she mocks the dancing of the other girls on the block, whose moves look like a lite version of the Sugababes, especially as they and other girls dance in the video to 'Stronger'. Chasing the dream of becoming a music or dancing star, these girls are suffering from illusions that reality will never be able to realise. Mia, on the other hand, dances not for show and in public, but for herself, which is another reason for her to walk out on the nightclub audition. Self-expression must be that: expression of and for self, not just for the amusement and pleasure of others. What disappointment to discover that Connor works at QuikFit or equivalent (the company name escapes me).
Compare Connor to Billy. Billy keeps an old horse next to his caravan, the almost surreal presence of which is signalled early on as being a metaphor for Mia: Mia approaches and tries to free the horse. But, Billy later explains (after some anxious-making abuse from his brother) that the horse's emaciated form is not a result of his and his brother's cruelty to the animal, but merely a result of the horse being old. They do look after the animal, even if it is chained to a block. Connor may at first be linked to the countryside in the film, but it is Billy that has the potential for escape, the one who really might be able to get out of Essex. The one who is independent (Billy steals car parts from scrapyards rather than working for a proper outfit).
Glaucoma is caused by intraocular pressure, which can lead to damage on the optic nerve and, if untreated, blindness. Perhaps the French are correct in using the term glauque to describe the places in the contemporary world that are not pretty on the eye; as if the pressure that these places exert on us can cause us to become blind to the beauty of the world, blind to the real causes of unhappiness, blind.
Fish Tank may be part of a filmmaking tradition that fetishises the glauque, hence the neologism glaucorama used in this blog. But it is perhaps also a term that can help us to think about the effect that unlovely architecture and concrete urbania can have on our eyes. Arnold's film does suggest that there is beauty to be found anywhere, even while having a pint in an asphalt pub carpark. And perhaps Arnold's film can help us to see this. The film does also bring to mind the sense that 'blindness' does not come about as a result of belonging to a certain class, but that it is tied to the drab estates and crap towns that are occupied by Britain's lower middle classes. That is, glaucorama is a question of place not of class, and while there may be a complex correlation between the glauque and certain classes, it is not because the two go hand in hand or deserve each other, even if to live in the glauque might contribute to a certain problematic state of mind (boredom).
In this sense, Arnold's film is full of poignant social critique: our point of view is, quite literally, shaped by the quality of what we see. When, like Billy, we see beauty in a car wreck, or, like Mia, in a chained horse we wish to be free, these are perspectives that are exceptional. Connor talks a good game of this, but in the end he sees objects of conquest, not methods of escape. And for the rest, trapped in the glauque in the glaucorama: something needs to be done to end it, and saying that the glaucomatics have glaucoma because they live in the glauque with their glaucorama just isn't going to wash. Let's see loveliness in the unlovely. Arnold goes some way towards curing people's eyes so that it is this that they can see.
Glauque might typically be used to describe a small town that has little in the way of variety, little in the way of culture, little nowadays in the way of industry, too. Just a population that strives not to be bored in a place that would destroy the motivation of a tyrant. Only drinking and similar pastimes emerge to counter the boredom - if you can afford the booze. A whole community bored. But it's still a place to call home.
Andrea Arnold's new film, Fish Tank (pronounced 'fee-shtonk' by the French), is set in the Mardyke, near Thurrock, in Essex. The town, and more particularly the estate where 15-year old Mia (Katie Jarvis), her little sister and her mother (Kierston Wareing, still excellent after her great work in It's a Free World... (Ken Loach, UK/Italy/Germany/Spain/Poland, 2007)) live is definitely glauque.
For Mia spends her time trying to cadge money to buy cheap teenage cider and dancing on her own in an abandoned apartment higher up the block. Her mother is somewhat neglectful and angry; Mia is in trouble with the police for her violent behaviour; and her sister's mouth is full of words you've never read in the Bible.
Enter Connor (Michael Fassbender, he of Hunger (Steve McQueen, UK/Ireland, 2008) and Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, Germany/USA/France, 2009) fame). Good looking and charming, he takes a shine to Mia, encouraging her to dance, to be herself. And Mia takes a shine to him, a shine that ends up in a drunken fumble on the mother, Joanne's, sofa late one night.
Besotted with Connor, Mia tracks him down one day to find that he in fact is married with a kid. Mia disrupts Connor's apartment before kidnapping his daughter and bullying her through the Mardyke, a wind-swept lake of sorts into which the daughter falls. Mia manages to save her and returns her home and, after a most brief show-down with Connor, leaves for Wales with her 'pikey' new boyfriend, Billy (Harry Treadaway, who has recently been seen in the wholly under-rated Brothers of the Head (Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe, UK, 2005), the rated Control (Anton Corbijn, UK/USA/Australia/Japan, 2007), and the perhaps over-rated City of Ember (Gil Kenan, USA, 2008)).
Arnold's style is, similar to her previous and edgy film, Red Road (UK/Denmark, 2006), social realist or quasi-documentary: lots of handheld tracking shots through the estate, coupled with relatively well composed and atmospheric exterior shots of the Essex countryside, and tight framing suggesting a moral as well as literal claustrophobia with the interiors.
Connor's Irish charm is presented as an exotic break from the glaucorama that otherwise surrounds the lives of these characters, as Mia dreams of escape by making it as a nightclub dancer. She is enabled in this endeavour by Connor, who lends her his camcorder so that she can make a tape of herself. Mia, pretending to be older than she is (she is supposed to be 18 to work in the club), is definitely wary of the power of images and how one mediates oneself, not least because she sneaks into cybercafés to see the other dancers around and the latest moves that they have posted on YouTube.
But when Mia goes to a live audition, she does not have the nerve to go through with it when she realises that she will basically be ogled on a platform in a form of quasi- if not literal prostitution. In other words, the film presents a tension between Mia's knowing and canny positioning of herself as object of desire, while also not being a part of the adult world in which, however problematically, women's bodies seem to be bought and sold. And it is this tension, which is based upon Mia's growing awareness of her body, that makes of Fish Tank a compelling 'coming of age' story - in which finally she might gain independence, perhaps notably by a move to Wales.
It is perhaps important that it is Connor who gives Mia the camera with which she records herself: for all of his charm, Connor acts as no more than an extension of a male-governed system of the the gaze at and objectification of women. On a 'family' trip to a disused fishing lake, Connor might well be able to catch fishes with his bare hands (a moment that has strong sexual undertones - made most clear when Mia cuts her foot and bleeds while with him in the water), but his liberating capacities are inseparable from the violence that he also performs on those with whom he comes into contact. Not that Mia or Joanne should end up with Connor, but whatever exoticism he offers is chimerical since he is a sex tourist who may flaunt his own body, but who in so doing makes other flaunt theirs as well. Some ambiguity: Connor may be a shit and may do wrong by both mother and daughter, but one senses that they are perhaps stronger as a result.
But then maybe Mia was stronger all along. Not least in the sense that she mocks the dancing of the other girls on the block, whose moves look like a lite version of the Sugababes, especially as they and other girls dance in the video to 'Stronger'. Chasing the dream of becoming a music or dancing star, these girls are suffering from illusions that reality will never be able to realise. Mia, on the other hand, dances not for show and in public, but for herself, which is another reason for her to walk out on the nightclub audition. Self-expression must be that: expression of and for self, not just for the amusement and pleasure of others. What disappointment to discover that Connor works at QuikFit or equivalent (the company name escapes me).
Compare Connor to Billy. Billy keeps an old horse next to his caravan, the almost surreal presence of which is signalled early on as being a metaphor for Mia: Mia approaches and tries to free the horse. But, Billy later explains (after some anxious-making abuse from his brother) that the horse's emaciated form is not a result of his and his brother's cruelty to the animal, but merely a result of the horse being old. They do look after the animal, even if it is chained to a block. Connor may at first be linked to the countryside in the film, but it is Billy that has the potential for escape, the one who really might be able to get out of Essex. The one who is independent (Billy steals car parts from scrapyards rather than working for a proper outfit).
Glaucoma is caused by intraocular pressure, which can lead to damage on the optic nerve and, if untreated, blindness. Perhaps the French are correct in using the term glauque to describe the places in the contemporary world that are not pretty on the eye; as if the pressure that these places exert on us can cause us to become blind to the beauty of the world, blind to the real causes of unhappiness, blind.
Fish Tank may be part of a filmmaking tradition that fetishises the glauque, hence the neologism glaucorama used in this blog. But it is perhaps also a term that can help us to think about the effect that unlovely architecture and concrete urbania can have on our eyes. Arnold's film does suggest that there is beauty to be found anywhere, even while having a pint in an asphalt pub carpark. And perhaps Arnold's film can help us to see this. The film does also bring to mind the sense that 'blindness' does not come about as a result of belonging to a certain class, but that it is tied to the drab estates and crap towns that are occupied by Britain's lower middle classes. That is, glaucorama is a question of place not of class, and while there may be a complex correlation between the glauque and certain classes, it is not because the two go hand in hand or deserve each other, even if to live in the glauque might contribute to a certain problematic state of mind (boredom).
In this sense, Arnold's film is full of poignant social critique: our point of view is, quite literally, shaped by the quality of what we see. When, like Billy, we see beauty in a car wreck, or, like Mia, in a chained horse we wish to be free, these are perspectives that are exceptional. Connor talks a good game of this, but in the end he sees objects of conquest, not methods of escape. And for the rest, trapped in the glauque in the glaucorama: something needs to be done to end it, and saying that the glaucomatics have glaucoma because they live in the glauque with their glaucorama just isn't going to wash. Let's see loveliness in the unlovely. Arnold goes some way towards curing people's eyes so that it is this that they can see.
Tags: andrea arnold, cinema, film, fish tank, glaucoma, glaucorama, glauque
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