Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank: Realism and Metaphor
Cinematekene er et samarbeid om felles digitale visninger på cinematekene i Bergen, Kristiansand, Lillehammer, Oslo, Stavanger, Tromsø og Trondheim. Montages setter fokus på filmene i utvalget gjennom ukentlige artikler. Andrea Arnolds Fish Tank (2009) vises fra og med torsdag 23. oktober – sjekk tidspunkter i oversikten hos ditt cinematek.
Chama Al Houari (f. 2002) is an aspiring filmmaker from Morocco and Montages’ editorial assistant. She is currently living in Oslo, and is passionate about film history and how movies reflects the world.
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How much of our fate really is in our hands? And how much of our life is dictated by our birth, no matter how much we attempt to rise above it? How can we blame anyone for going mad inside a fish tank?
Fish Tank (2009), British director Andrea Arnold’s second feature, tells the story of an unlucky girl—a working-class Brit dancing her way past her circumstances, only to go round in circles. The film is a brutally tender exploration of adolescence and isolation, where realism and metaphor mirror the struggle between hope and disillusionment.
Rooted in the post-industrial landscape of East London, Fish Tank extends the lineage of British social realism into a distinctly female experience. Arnold reframes the grit of working-class cinema through a lyrical lens, finding grace in the ordinary and despair in the domestic. While Ken Loach or Mike Leigh observe from the outside, Arnold immerses us in the emotional turbulence of her protagonist’s interior life. Her realism is not merely observational — it’s empathetic, tactile, and insistently personal.
Arnold’s blend of actors and non-actors creates a layered authenticity. Michael Fassbender and street-cast newcomer Katie Jarvis generate a rare electricity on screen; the dynamic between the experienced actor and the passionate amateur uncannily reflects their fictional power imbalance.
Much like in Arnold’s other works, such as in the short film Milk (1998) or American Honey (2016), she paints a nuanced portrait of harsh reality with strokes of both inner and outer circumstance, culminating in her signature documentary-like style. The handheld camera reflects the instability of the characters’ lives, while the 4:3 format elegantly frames the chaos of their world — giving the film a high-art sensibility even as it captures mental and urban wreckage.
The minimal, dreamlike lighting and subtle slow motion heighten the scenes between Connor and Mia without breaking the immersive realism. They draw us deeper into her volatile world, where we come to understand her recklessness as an expression of her longing for a brighter life. The balance of style and composition with chilling honesty recalls filmmakers like Sean Baker or Harmony Korine, yet Arnold’s voice remains distinctly her own. As grounded as her world is, Arnold threads devastating metaphors through it — metaphors that deepen Mia’s humanity and save the film from accusations of soulless exploitation.
The Wound
Throughout the film, Mia is repeatedly wounded. The first instance occurs when Connor takes the girls to the river, and Mia joins him in the water to catch fish. When she begins to bleed, her mother turns away and Connor seizes the opportunity to show care. Mia is shaken and disarmed by this overt affection, which quickly wins her interest. Later, when she visits him at work, he checks her wound and gently bandages it, further solidifying Mia’s trust in the much older man.
Arnold paints a portrait of a young woman constantly bearing an open wound — one she must tend to herself, as no one around her seems to notice or help. What makes Connor so fascinating and dangerous for Mia is his attention to her suffering. She craves recognition — the gentleness of being seen — and combined with her lack of experience, this leaves her dangerously vulnerable to manipulation and abuse. When Connor eventually abandons Mia and her family after using them, she is once again cut open, this time by his own hand. She is no longer of use — no longer worthy of his affection or concern.
Arnold’s camera resists the voyeurism that might otherwise define a story like Mia’s. Though the film exposes her vulnerability, it never objectifies her. Instead, the camera’s proximity becomes a form of empathy — inviting us into Mia’s physical and emotional confusion without stripping her of agency. In this way, Fish Tank quietly subverts the male gaze, reclaiming the adolescent female body from exploitation and turning it into a site of self-definition. The result is a vision of female subjectivity both raw and fiercely autonomous, emerging through a world that seeks to contain it.
The Horse
A gray horse stands chained to the ground in a trailer park — a jarring image that instantly captures Mia’s attention. Putting herself in harm’s way, she tries to free the horse from captivity. She does this repeatedly, even returning after being assaulted by the horse’s keepers. Her affection for the animal reveals a deep identification with its entrapment. Her desperate attempts to liberate it reflect her own longing for freedom.
But Mia never succeeds, and the horse dies in captivity — shot by its owners. It is a grim, brutal moment culminating in Mia’s breakdown in tears. For some, life is ruthless and cruel; it can end exactly as it began, despite every attempt to move forward.
The Dream
The dream in Mia’s story embodies the adolescent struggle between disillusionment and the hope of realizing one’s youthful dreams. This tension is expressed through Mia’s complex relationship with dance—something she both pursues passionately and hides fiercely. With little support from her mother, Mia keeps this part of herself hidden and protected from ridicule. When Connor discovers her talent, he encourages her, manipulating her innocent hope for his own ends.
Yet beyond his manipulation, dance remains Mia’s only escape—a space for agency and expression, the one place that can sustain her otherwise tormented life. The dream exists where Mia’s mind and body belong entirely to herself. It’s no surprise she abandons the audition once she realizes what’s really at play—just another attempt to use her body.
The Balloon
The film’s final image is simple yet powerful. As Mia leaves her troubled home, a heart-shaped helium balloon drifts above her East London neighbourhood. Though the balloon will eventually burst and fall back to earth, for a brief moment it floats freely — unbound, heading somewhere different.
Through Fish Tank, Arnold transforms the seemingly ordinary into a tribute to tenderness beneath coarseness, and to longing beneath anger. She raises the tension between confinement and release, between social determinism and individual agency—all through the eyes of a young woman the world would otherwise disregard.
Fish Tank is the excavation of soul beneath the wreckage.
