Fish Tank Opening Scene

In the first scene we see natural lighting looking over a working class cityscape, full of terraced houses and blocks of flats towering high, instantly making the audience aware of the urban area and poverty that the drama will take place in. We are introduced to a young girl dressed in jogging bottoms, a tank top and trainers. She has a typical cockney accent. The audience then know that it is based in London and are given further clues about the location. You can tell the film fits into the social realist genre as within the first 2 minutes we are given a realistic portrayal of British society, some area's of England are truly like this. Already we can tell that the drama will represent this girls life and her difficulties, very typical to the social realist genre. The camera follows her around with a hand held movements, alienating her from the rest of the groups/characters in the scene. Social realist films predominantly use hand held camera movements, natural lighting and unknown actors as these all reflect the concept of it being 'real'. She is walking very fast as if she has some place to go but in actual fact she is going nowhere, just walking aimlessly with no direction. This could reflect her her life, no plans etc nothing to do but she masks it up with pretending she has some direction or aim. She swears and uses threatening language towards other characters, displaying her in a negative light. People tend to be products of their upbringing and environment and we soon learn that she has learnt to hit and swear off her mother, a stereotypical young working class mum that we soon learn drinks often and brings young men back frequently.