Wednesday, 11 January 2012

To what extent can the contemporary British films Fish Tank and Eden Lake be said to offer a negative representation of youth.

FISH TANK
ADOLESCENCE - Adolescence is portrayed by her having no control about the decision of her going off to the referral unit. She also has no control about living at home, but she and her younger sister both smoke and drink showing that they are trying to gain some control by breaking age limits. They also both rebel against authoritative figures such as their mother and her boyfriend and immediately go against what they are told to do.

SCHOOL/EDUCATION - Through out the film you notice Mia does not attend school, how ever in one scene a representative in a special needs school come to talk to her about attending and she runs away. then later in the film she has a letter from that special school and she rips it up and chucks it out the window. Within the film her mother make remarks about attending the school , and tries to rub it in as if she is forcing her to go.

FINDING WORK - Mia doesn't specifically go out and search for work, she stumbles upon a job ad in a shop window for a dancer, as she thinks herself as quite the dancer, she finds it relevant to apply. However, she misinterpreted what kind of dancing was required and ended up making a fool of herself. Instead of gracefully saying that she has misunderstood the kind of dancing they were looking for, she stormed out.

CHOOSING A CAREER - Mia throughout the film shows an interest of dancing and dances every day in an abandoned flat in a council estate. She finds a flyer advertising a dance audition so she decides to send in her audition tape and gets a callback to come for an audition and she freezes during the audition because she misunderstood street dancing for stripping and is underage so leaves the audition. She then loses her passion for dancing and goes off with a traveler.

FINDING LOVE/FRIENDSHIP/ACCEPTANCE - Finding love she has a soft spot for her mothers boyfriend and develops a love for him and ends up having her first sexual experience with him. Then making friends with one of the travelers and moves away with him. This can also show her acceptance as she never really had any from her mother and friends. Also loosing her friends and trying to get there friendship back she move on and goes to wales.

EXPERIMENTATION - DRUGS, CULTURE, CRIME - Instead of doing one off crime, Mia in essence is living a life of crime as she breaks into the same empty flat and uses it as her get away. This is unsurprising as the culture in which she lives in is fraught with crime and drug abuse. Although Mia doesn't take any drugs, there is a lot of intake of alcohol, which could be perceived to be in the same league as drugs.

LEAVING HOME - At the end of the film after being rejected from her dance audition, she leaves with the traveler that she has built a relationship with throughout the film after trying to steal his horse and then it dies. The end of the film sees her leaving, having a final moment with her mum that contrasts their relationship throughout the film as they dance together and have a laugh whereas throughout the film they have been arguing a lot. She then leaves with the traveler and goes to Wales with her sister chasing the car, also contrasting the previous relationship.


EDEN LAKE
ADOLESCENCE - PHYSICALLY AND EMOTIONALLY MATURING - The kids within the film are aggressive in every from in the film. For example when Steve asked Brett to turn down the music he is still aggressive even if he asked nicely, and for that he bursts Steve's car tires and tries to steel the keys.

SCHOOL/EDUCATION - School and education doesn't play a major role in the film. However, Jenny, Steve's girlfriend, is a primary school teacher. This seems to echo throughout the film as her affection for children is that she doesn't want to harm them, but she just gets pushed to the edge, but she soon regrets her actions.

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