My relationship with the filmography of Andrea Arnold is incredibly strange.
Red Road is the only film of hers that I really love (and still do to this day). I was a little disappointed by
Wuthering Heights, the main reason I really liked
Fish Tank was because of the (unexpected) classic hip-hop soundtrack (Nas, Gangstarr, Eric B & Rakim, etc), and while I enjoy
Wasp (her Oscar winning short film), the lead character was very frustrating (at the end of the day I think she's an incredibly irresponsible mother yet I feel like we're still supposed to kind of like her and I just don't). But maybe that's the point...
But even with all that said, there's still
something about her style that motivated me to do this entry.
I didn't realize I was such an Andrea Arnold fan/defender until Pink Smoker Chris Funderberg referred to me as such in a Sundance piece on
Wuthering Heights a while back. After reading his thoughts I thought to myself; "Am I an Andrea Arnold defender?" Then I thought back on how the first time I met Chris a decade ago I defended
Red Road right out of the gate. A few years after that I went to see
Fish Tank with PINNLAND EMPIRE contributor Doug Frye and found myself kind of defending her work again after sensing he wasn't that impressed (I also defended
Fish Tank to PINNLAND EMPIRE contributor Ian Loffill a year after that). I
even still want to love Wuthering Heights when I know I shouldn't (I was definitely disappointed but there is an ambiance to that film that I am drawn to).
So I guess I am an Andrea Arnold defender.
But no matter what criticisms I have (this is definitely the most critical "cinema of" entry to date), I still think she's a unique voice in arthouse cinema and her work is worthy of the analysis below.
Enjoy...
FEMALE LEADS
Andrea Arnold's films are always told from the perspective of a female protagonist (naturally there are a few exceptions as she has quite a few important male supporting characters, but at the end of the day her films are geared towards the female point of view). If you look at Arnold's entire body of work as one continuous story it's almost like we're watching one amalgamated woman grow up through her movies. With
Fish Tank,
Dog & the first half of her (LOOSE) adaptation of
Wuthering Heights we get that adolescent/coming of age period. In
Wasp she focuses on women in their 20's (who all have some maturing to do), while
Red Road &
Milk both focus on more mature women in their 30's.
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| Fish Tank |
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| Milk |
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| Red Road |
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| Wasp |
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| Wuthering Heights |
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| American Honey |
This branches off to the female-specific subcategory of motherhood...
MOTHERHOOD
Not only do Arnold's films feature mothers, but their children are always girls (Jackie's deceased child in
Red Road was a girl & the mother in
Wasp has three daughters)
so we get this common theme of the relationship between mothers & daughters...
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| Red Road |
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| Fish Tank |
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| Wasp |
SEXUAL TENSION BETWEEN MEN & WOMEN
A separate analysis could be written on the sexual friction/tension between men & women in the films of Andrea Arnold (this is something I don't think she gets credit for). The politics concerning gender in her movies are always on the nose but interesting nonetheless. Like her exploration of females at various stages, each of her films shows the classic, yet not always positive, sexual relationships between men & women. In
Red Road we see the main female lead use sex as a trap (it's a bit more complicated than that but that's what it is on the surface).
In
Fish Tank we see the age-old tale of the older man preying on the younger vulnerable girl. And in
Wuthering Heights we see the sexual curiosity of young boys & girls in the midst of puberty...
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| Wasp |
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| Red Road |
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| Wuthering Heights |
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| American Honey |
THE PRESENCE OF ANIMALS & INSECTS
The life of an animal or insect often mirrors that of a character in an Andrea Arnold film. In
Red Road, Jackie (Kate Dickie) is still grieving the loss of her husband & daughter. All while this is happening she becomes fascinated with a sick dog that lives in her neighborhood. By the end of the film that dog dies and the owner gets a new a dog which mirrors Jackie getting on with her life and moving past the loss of her family. Arnold kind of recreated this human vs animal relationship in her next film. In
Fish Tank, Mia becomes strangely fascinated with a wild horse (just like Jackie's relationship with the sick dog in
Red Road). By the end of the film the horse dies just as Mia moves out of her Mother's house to be independent.
Some might say her use of animals is a bit cliche (and it kind of is), but it's still an important part of her work.
Even when she isn't using animals in a symbolic/metaphorical way, they're always present in the background of all of her films (at a Q&A for Fish Tank I attended a few years ago, Michael Fassbender made it a point to bring up Arnold's love of animals)
