the Directors: Andrea Arnold

There is no contemporary filmmaker currently making better, more important films about women than Andrea Arnold. As far as my tastes go, Arnold’s films are simply unmatched. Her frank and necessary use of sexuality, her understanding of the lower class, her unyielding respect for women – all reasons why Arnold is one of cinema’s most unique voices.

Beyond the stories she chooses to tell, it’s the way Arnold chooses to tell them that is worth praising. Arnold’s last two feature films, Fish Tank and Wuthering Heights, were shot in the 4x3 (or 1.33:1) Academy ratio, which means that the films are essentially projected as a square, as opposed to a widescreen rectangle that we’re used to. This is a very deliberate and very bold way to display a modern film, especially if you’re not using it as a gimmick, as Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel did. According to Arnold, the 4x3 ratio gives the film a specific type of intimacy that widescreen lacks.

“I think why I like [4x3] is because my films are mostly about one person,” Arnold has said. “I’m following that one person and I’m keen on that one person. It’s a very respectful and beautiful frame for one person. It gives them a lot of space. You can frame one person in a 4x3, and it gives them a lot of humanity.”

But believe me, the way she visually presents her films is just one thing that helps Andrea Arnold stand out. If you haven’t seen her work, I highly recommend seeking her movies out immediately. If you’re familiar with Arnold’s films, give them all another watch anyway. I promise they only get better.

Short: Milk (1998)

Milk is one of the best short films I’ve ever seen. This movie literally changed me. I watched it a month before I went into production on my similarly-themed short film, Earrings, and it gave me the strength and confidence to move forward. At just 10 minutes long, I risk revealing any details about Milk. Essentially, after enduring a tragic event, a woman finds herself coping through destructive means. The film is quick but patient, painful but real. In all sincerity, Milk is as good as short films get. A+

Short: Dog (2001)

Dog is a perfect precursor to Arnold’s best film, Fish Tank. The short is set in the same rough and tumble East London council estates as Fish Tank, shot with a gritty, handheld urgency, and features a young woman desperately trying to figure life out as her angry mother breathes down her neck. Like Milk, Dog clocks in at a just a few seconds over 10 minutes, so it seems fruitless to reveal too many details. But, as is the case with all of Arnold’s films, Dog features a central lead performance by a young female (played here by Joanne Hill) that is simply astounding. Hill makes Dog worth it all on her own, but thankfully, there’s plenty more to appreciate. A-

Short: Wasp (2003)

Arnold won the 2004 Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film for the superb, 25-minute long Wasp. The film is a day in the life of a young mother desperately trying to care for her four children. Zoe (a perfect Natalie Press) loves her children but doesn’t have the financial means or sense of responsibility to tend to them. Much of the film is centered on Zoe visiting a bar with a former lover, while her kids (one of whom is still in a stroller) wait outside eating chips and soda for dinner. Tragedy threatens to strike, but, in typical Arnold fashion, the tragedy doesn’t become the story, it merely exists within the story. Like all great short films, Wasp presents just enough information to get us hooked, yet ends with us desperate for more. Note: Milk, Dog and Wasp are all available on Fish Tank’s Criterion disc. A

Red Road (2006)

We meet a woman. A quiet, nondescript woman named Jackie (Kate Dickie). Jackie mostly keeps to herself, punching in at a job that requires her to watch other people. As a CCTV operator, Jackie monitors the live footage streaming from dozens of cameras around Glasgow. If she witnesses a crime in progress (or something that looks to become a crime) it’s her job to inform the police. For the first 20 minutes of the film, this is who Jackie is. She sits, she watches, she waits. One day, by pure chance, a man comes across one of her monitors. A man Jackie never thought she’d see again. The very sight of this man upsets Jackie to no end, and she spends the remainder of the film thinking of ways to get close to him, while we try to figure out why.

Red Road is an ingenious thriller in which motivations are unknown, and the thrills are slow-brewing yet well earned. Kate Dickie is sensational in the lead role; the strength of the film depends entirely on Dickie’s performance, and she all but carries the film. From the moment we meet Jackie, we can tell she’s been through hell. But when this mysterious man comes back into her life, Dickie subtly transforms from victim to aggressor, giving Jackie one hell of a compelling character arc.

The film was shot in the Dogma 95 style (natural light, handheld cameras, no sets, etc.), making it Arnold’s most distinctly raw film. Red Road is a mystery film for people who are seemingly done with the mystery films. There isn’t a shred of cliché or artifice to be found here. Everything is new, and everything is real. The suspense is well earned, and the pain cuts damn deep. A

Fish Tank (2009)

Fish Tank is one of the best films ever made about the teenage condition. The confusion, the angst, the sexual chaos, the emotional upheaval – few films match Fish Tank’s authenticity and audacity in depicting teenage life. Mia (Katie Jarvis, delivering as fine a debut performance as I’ve ever seen) is tired and angry and continually pissed off. She’s 15 years old but has the aggression of someone who has lived a full and embittered life. Her mother, Joanne, is cruel, reckless, and rarely pretends to care about anyone but herself. Mia’s younger sister, Tyler, is nearly as volatile as Mia, though her angst is just for show, for now.

Mia’s life is relatively simple. She starts and ends fights with zero regard to their consequence, stands up to dangerous older men, battles with her mother constantly, and secretly practices a hip-hop dance routine in a vacant flat, an act that appears to be the sole thing that gives Mia joy. When Joanne’s handsome, kind and charismatic new boyfriend, Connor (Michael Fassbender) comes into the picture, Mia’s life finds new purpose. For the first time in a long time (if not ever), Mia is exposed to generosity and kindness. Connor listens to her; he encourages her dancing and includes her in fun activities. A sexual tension begins to form between Mia and Connor, but it isn’t acted upon or dealt with in a way you might expect.

There’s a scene late in the film in which Mia discovers something particularly troubling. She reacts by pacing back and forth, panting feverishly and then, like a rabid animal in disarray, squatting down and urinating in the middle of a living room. In this moment, Mia is literally an animal motivated by bodily instinct. It’s one of the best, most raw moments I can recall from contemporary cinema, and it’s just one of many reasons that Fish Tank is so accomplished. I know I’ve risked venturing into hyperbole in this post, but that’s for good reason. Genuinely, Fish Tank is as good as modern cinema gets. I cannot find a single fault in it. A+

Wuthering Heights (2011)

By far the most grim and ice-cold film adaptation of Emily Brontë’s novel yet, Arnold’s interpretation of Wuthering Heights is a stark and foreboding character study of unrequited love. Every single frame of this film is bathed in foggy dread and gray horror. And while Arnold’s take on the story is as far from William Wyler’s version as you can get, I dare say that Wuthering Heights has never been as interesting and provocative as it is through Arnold’s lens.

Like Fish Tank, Arnold’s Wuthering Heights is presented in the 4x3 aspect ratio, an interesting choice, given the vastness of the material. One might expect a filmmaker to visually open Wuthering Heights up as much as possible, and let all of those stark landscapes bleed through. But by narrowing the frame, Arnold’s film focuses on the intimacy of the romance, not just on how pretty the setting is (though it is gorgeous).

Of all of Arnold’s work, Wuthering Heights is arguably her least successful effort yet, but there’s an inherent respect I have for filmmakers who adapt such common material in such an extraordinary way. Arnold’s Wuthering Heights is so wildly unlike any other adaptation of the material yet, that I can’t imagine any future Wuthering Heights matching Arnold’s originality. B+

In Summation

Masterful

Milk

Red Road

Fish Tank

Great

Dog

Wasp

Wuthering Heights

Good

None

Eh

None

Just Plain Bad

None

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