With occasional reflection on the perpetual absurdity/intrigue of life and society in general.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Fish Tank - Featured Film of Interest - Highly Recommended

This is a re-posting. I recently had the privilege of screening this film and made comments below.

Release date: In Cinemas Friday!
Certificate: 15
Running time: 124 mins
Official UK website: www.fishtankmovie.com

Premier PR online and Artificial Eye are pleased to make available the trailer, new one sheet poster, images, production notes, official UK website and social network links for FISH TANK, in UK cinemas Friday.

FISH TANK is Academy Award-winning writer and director Andrea Arnold's second feature following her 2006 Cannes Jury Prize winner, Red Road. The film was selected for the Official Competition at the Cannes Film Festival and won the Jury Prize.

In
FISH TANK, 15 year old Mia's life is turned on its head when her mum brings home a new boyfriend. Arnold casts the same unflinching, unprejudiced gaze and touches on the themes of her Oscar-winning short Wasp to create an original and unsettling tale for our age.

Following his acclaimed central performance in
Hunger, Michael Fassbender (300, Inglourious Basterds) stars opposite talented newcomer Katie Jarvis. Rounding out the principal cast are BAFTA-nominated Kierston Wareing(Ken Loach’s It's a Free World), Harry Treadaway (Control, Brothers of the Head) and 12 year old Rebecca Griffiths making her film debut.
Produced by
Kees Kasander (Prospero's Books, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife And Her Lover) and Nick Laws, and executive produced by Paul Trijbits (Ruby Films) and Christine Langan and David M Thompson for BBC Films, FISH TANK was shot entirely on location in the UK.

I screened this film recently (actually, relatively close to the UK release date - amazing for this town) and it is an exceptional piece of work, beautifully crafted, fulfilling its intent thoroughly, eerily Bressonian realism (a rare comparison for active filmmakers, other than the Dardenne Bros. or Bruno Dumont maybe), and most importantly - I cared so much by the end! - and was left with a slow burn of effectual contemplation. Admittedly, it starts a bit slow and borders on territories of repetitive meandering (as hard realism is often in threat of), but by the middle I was fully invested, and subtle stylistic touches began to create an intriguing social landscape. I presume that upon a second viewing the early narrative style and structure is justified, particularly for tonal purposes - and it never left me uninterested by any means. I have been quite slow to screen many of my intrigue films of 2009 (ref. Recent Films of Interest), particularly the foreign films for obvious reasons, but of the films that I've had the privilege or burden of viewing, this is in the upper bracket of my "best of"(forgive me) films for 2009.

1 comment:

Jacob said...

You know this is playing at cinematique soon, right?