Wasp – Andrea Arnold – 2003 Notes PDF

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Essay on Wasp by Andrea Arnold for first year English Literature compulsory module...

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Wasp – Andrea Arnold – 2003

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Andrea Arnold’s third short film. Won over 30 international festival awards. Won the Oscar for Best Short Film in 2005. Short drama film. ‘The main aim for the film was to try and show the central character Zoë in all her complexity. I know the way she treats her kids is not good, verging on abuse really but I wanted to show why she might do that and for the audience to have empathy for her as well as the kids. I wanted to show how a person’s circumstances and environment influences the way they essentially are. I wanted people to understand her behaviour instead of just condemning it. This was my main goal for the film’ Andrea Arnold. Hand-held shots place you in the action. Lots of close-ups document the mundane and minutiae of everyday life, showing them in their less-than-adequate lives. Shots of her clothing, lack of shoes and general appearance show that she is not concerned with vanity, or rather, doesn’t have the means to be. Natural lighting; low-key with plenty of shadows makes for a realistic setting. The way that she walks with her children shows their boredom and their lack of anger that she possesses. Her baby, Kai, isn’t even wearing a nappy, showing that she is a bad mother, or perhaps that she has no money to buy these things. Her figure behaviour when walking through the street shows her determination whilst the hand-held camera builds suspense. Her kids stand up for her, going as far as to say that Zoë looks like Victoria Beckham; greeted humorously. She doesn’t shelter her children from anything, encouraging them to swear; again showing that there is the possibility of her being a bad mother.

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Zoë tells her daughter, Kelly, not to say anything about her looking like Victoria Beckham again. We discover that it’s Zoë that has mentioned this ‘likeness’ in the past; presenting the idea that Zoë desires a life like Victoria Beckham’s. Throughout the film, the girls’ desire is to have chips. Zoë complains that the children are always hungry; we later discover that this is because she can’t afford to buy them food. Being the central protagonist, Zoë has a lot of close-ups showing her facial expressions and giving us a greater insight into her thoughts as a result. A shot of Dave goes slightly out of focus, mimicking her incapability of collecting her thoughts, as she really likes him. She lies about the children being hers. Shots of her bare feet on the pavement show that she feels selfconscious about the way she looks. All diegetic sound makes it more realistic. When he mentions going to a particular pub and how it will bring back memories, there are extreme close-ups of his lips and eyes, separated by a tilt. This point-of-view shot show her keenness at seeing him as well as how much she likes him. The ‘perfection’ of this scene is interrupted with a realistic moment of his car not starting straight away. Kelly comments on Dave looking like David Beckham; exciting Zoë as the pieces of her fairy tale seemingly fall into place. The girls find it hysterical that ironically, his name is David. The wasp is trapped, trying to get out; this wasp is representative of them being ‘trapped’ in their unhappy lives, wanting to escape. We repeatedly see Zoë’s idea of happiness, linked to the Beckham’s. A photo of David Beckham is stuck on the wall, next to a drawing of a ‘mummy bear’ and a ‘daddy bear’ implying that she wants to find her own ‘David Beckham’. Other items on the wall are shown including a sticker saying I want to be Barbie that Bitch has everything again, reiterating this idea of perfection, but putting it in a realistic light. When calling her friend, she mentions that she doesn’t have much credit, again, pointing out her state of poverty. This is further emphasised as she rummages through cupboards looking for

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food for her children, but only finds empty packets and mouldy bread, eventually finding a nearly-finished bag of sugar which she gives them to share. When speaking to her friend she states ‘he asked me out, after all this time’ showing that she’s liked him for years and that this date is a big deal to her. Again, the wasp is shown trying to get out whilst she’s looking through her purse for money. This again makes the connection of her wanting to escape her financial worries and the responsibility that she has for her children. Zoë lets the wasp out, leaving the window open – escape. In this shot she is shown using low-key lighting, completely in darkness in the foreground mimicking the darkness of her situation; the mid-ground is the window, representing her ‘gateway’ to happiness; the background – outside, well lit, resembling her freedom and everything that she doesn’t have. When they’re on the way to the pub, we are initially shown closeups of her shoes, a contrast as she has gone from being barefoot to wearing high-heels; her legs and miniskirt; the back of her head, showing that she’s made the effort to wear earrings and to do her hair for the occasion. The baby is shown asleep, showing how unfair this is on her children. One of the girls pushes a doll in a buggy, mimicking Zoë, and the kind of mother that she is, reinforcing how the way she behaves has a greater effect on her children. She tries to amuse her children, almost making it seem like it’ll be a fun outing for them; racing them down the hill. When they are going over the bridge, one of the girls is in the foreground, the ‘bars’ of the bridge are in the mid-ground symbolising their ‘imprisonment’ from the background – the outside world with cars going to interesting places, and more importantly leaving the place that they’re in. The next shot is an extreme long shot of them crossing the bridge in loose framing, showing their loneliness and isolation.

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The fairy tale is somewhat shattered when his chivalry is undermined as he asks her to pay for the first round of drinks, commenting that she’s a ‘modern bird’. Zoë has to change her order so that she can afford what she wants to buy, but she changes what she’s having rather than what she’s getting for her children, showing that she does care for them on some levels, even if it’s through her own selfish acts. When she takes the food out to her children, a song comes on that they all dance to, with the exception of one of the girls who observes, disinterested in what her mother wants her to do. This scene is moving in the way that it shows a normal relationship between parent and child. The children are shown running around the pub car park, this danger is conveyed through continuous long takes with a handheld camera with swish-pans creating a feeling of involvement and evoking concern for the children. The woman that Zoë had a fight with earlier is also in the pub and comments on Zoë’s bad parenting. This shows how quickly people are to judge, when they themselves might be wrong as well. A romantic song plays in the background as Dave and Zoë confess they secretly used to like each other. Kelly is shown as a maternal figure whilst Zoë is gone, offering to take them all home, but Zoë replies by asking her if she’s think and that of course she can’t. Having taken her place as a mother, Kelly feels that she is on the same level as Zoë, and asks her if she’s going to have sex with Dave. This angers Zoë, however she’s the one subjecting her children to this way of life. The cameraman remains distant at this point to remove the viewer from the emotional intricacies and to give a more objective view of Zoë’s action’s being wrong. We see Zoë hesitate before she gets into Dave’s car, perhaps wondering if what she’s doing is wrong. The children are shown after having been waiting for hours, with one of the girls singing about fast-food chains, showing her desperation for food, and in particular, chips.

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We see one of the girls caring for her doll, showing her longing to be cared for by her mother in this way. This intense desperation is further shown when Kelly picks a dropped meal up off the floor, actually going as far as to give the others food that has literally fallen onto the floor. This evokes sympathy in the viewer, and disgust that these are the lengths that they have to go to because their mother doesn’t look after them properly. The wasp is shown again landing on the baby’s mouth, attracted by the residue of the food that Kelly’s given him. If we view the wasp as being representative of Zoë, then this shows that she is detrimental to her children’s lives. They call Zoë, and she pushes Dave away and runs to them, showing that it’s her natural instinct to care. The camera, shakily, tracks her as she runs towards them. The fact that the wasp targets the sleeping baby shows just how incapable she really is of helping her children. She can’t actively help him, but only begs the wasp not her sting Kai. Zoë can’t understand why Kelly gave them food; she wasn’t there when Kai was crying because he was hungry. Bordering on child abuse, she shakes Kelly. However, it is only because of Zoë neglecting her responsibilities as a mother that any of this has happened. Aware that they’ve been put at risk, she tearfully hugs her children with the exception of Kelly who refuses. Kelly’s upset isn’t simply because her mother shook her but also possibly because she feels the immense pressure of having to look after her siblings with no help, and only criticism from Zoë; although she does reluctantly give in. The children are shown in Dave’s car eating chips that he has obviously bought them, this shows a glimpse of a happy ending for them as they have obtained what they have been asking for throughout the film. Mixed feelings about Dave are shown again as he calmly says that he’ll take them home and that he and Zoë can talk about it, rather than being scared off and leaving.

Although this may seem like there’s a possibility of a happy ending with Dave and Zoë living happily ever after like David and Victoria Beckham, we are reminded of the possibility of it not working when Dave’s car won’t start.  It is in this way that Arnold continually places the realistic element within this film.  The car not starting reminds us that the film’s end is ambiguous; we don’t really know how it all ends for them. We are also reminded of the financial troubles Zoë has, the fact that she isn’t a brilliant mother; and even if this improves now, the way that she’s treated her children up until now will leave a lasting emotional scar on them. 

There are bigger issues here:      

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Poverty Unemployment Single mother stereotype Child abuse Representation Social problems and perception

The scene is set through extreme close-ups and extreme long shots for visual coherence, yet with fly-on-the-wall intimacy. You simply ‘exist’ in the character’s lives for a short space of time. The wasp comes to represent the poverty-stricken protagonists in their struggle against invisible social and financial structures. Zoë represents an entire generation of too-young mothers without a partner or parents to rely on for help. We see her children idolising and emulating their mother as children do. Is the director trying to tell us that Zoë’s lifestyle is killing her children? That Zoë herself is slowly killing them?

Wasp, in some ways, is a depiction of the strange worship of celebrity – the Beckham’s, in a sense, are the perfect celebrity family.  In many ways there’s an impossibility about Victoria Beckham, the ideal of the young, attractive mother. Motherhood for Victoria isn’t a sacrifice; her wealth provides the useful opportunity of maids and nannies to allow her time to shop and pose for the sea of paparazzi.  For Zoë, the Beckham’s represent the false pinnacle of desire: fashionable motherhood, physical perfection in marriage.

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