Towards the end of Fish Tank, Andrea Arnold’s most recent contribution to the film world and winner of the Jury’s award at the Cannes film festival, the heroine whips down her oversized tracksuit bottoms and urinates all over the carpet. Hurtling along at an unrelenting pace, the film has been building to this moment of release. It is an image so poignant that the viewer recoils and yet does not lose the thread of action even for a moment. We are held forcibly in this inner city concrete backwater for better or worse.
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