Monthly Archives: March 2011

I’m there, running in circles with her children, sitting in the back of an old car, walking through a smelly bar, growing more anxious with every frame. I feel hopeless and poor, a wild dog dressed as a child. Andrea Arnold’s exclusive use of the handheld camera, mixed in with some steady cam shots, is incredibly effective when conveying the anxiety of a single mother’s dilemma and her four children’s plight in the short film “Wasp.”

The film is incredibly easy to watch, but hard to sit through. Arnold takes the camera and shoots from the most awkward angles, to help create a sense of overwhelming claustrophobia in the film. In one scene Arnold traps us in the kitchen with desperation taking hold in the children’s eyes who stare at us with unrelenting hunger. Their mother scavenges for food and we join them on the floor and wait for moldy bread or flour.

The film also generates an incredible amount symbolism from otherwise meaningless imagery. Hand drawn paintings hang in the home after we see her lose a fight for them. She’s hungry and weak, but the love is there. On the car ride home a bag flies out the window symbolizing how we don’t appreciate things when we have them. The film is full of these strong images.

The fact that a movie can be this powerful with handhelds and on location shooting is wonderfully inspiring. Who needs two hours and a million dollar budget when something this powerful can be done with the so much care and attention to detail.

Wasp, directed by Andrea Arnold found its way into my heart.

I appreciate the direction Andrea Arnold went for. She focused many of the scenes on depicting the poor broken down background as a way to accentuate the lifestyle of a single mother raising 4 kids.  The film started with a crazy woman in rage, ready to pick a fight with no shoes, in her nightgown, and no shame in overuse of foul language, with a woman who has a decent house and a husband to care for her afterward, something she does not have.

What made this film the 2005 Oscar winner is the combination of a realistic family suffering, while still managing to find a way to portray the essences of what a family is. Problematic, annoying, untamed but they still have each other’s back, and at the end of the day they are the ones who are inseparable.

The one word title, Wasp, is a suitable title for the film. It was a V8 slap to the head for the mother. She was so focused on herself and her needs that she forgot her responsibility up until the Wasp, served as a warning, finds it way into her baby’s mouth.

‘Hey baby” was the main soundtrack to this film, provided a witty, tension-release moment to the frowns and saddening moments in the movie, was a great way to end the film.

There are various opinions of a successful horror film: one that involves blood and gore, the quality of suspense, the fear of death, or one that is psychologically troublesome. But what about a story that in 25 minutes can capture a subject matter that not only thousands of people live through, but that millions of others turn a blind eye to ? The 2005 Oscar-winning short film Wasp, directed by Andrea Arnold, redefines the meaning of horror in a painfully disturbing plot about a day in the life of a low-moral and poor-ridden mother who neglects her children. Without obvious intention, Arnold invites us into the film almost acting as social workers by witnessing the horrific cases they must deal with on a regular basis.

The entire idea of neglect is not the most disturbing part of this short film in my eyes. It is the molded bread she prepares to feed her children, and the pacifier that she dips in sugar to give to her infant child (who at the same time is wearing a too small onesie and no diaper). It is the foul language she uses around her children, including within the argument and fight with another mother around her neighborhood. It is the fact she will put her daughters’ lives in danger just to soak in the attention from a childhood crush who has no intent in having their relationship surpass one night. There are an endless amount of things she does that make every inch of my skin crawl, that make me cringe in disgust. Yet, most of all, what is most horrific about this short film, is the insane amount of truth. Neglect is real. What we witnessed IS life for so many children. Watching this film forces us to consider that so many of us are privileged to never have to go through such a tragedy.

In short, I guess the most obvious feeling I got from film would be: I absolutely love my mom.

One...Two...Three!

Wasp stings right where it hurts.

The film, set in the United Kingdom and directed by Andrea Arnold, focuses on a lower-class single mother, Zoe, that is having difficulty looking after her four children while maintaining a relationship with her former beau, David.

It’s easy to leap to the conclusion that Zoe is a failure of a mother – she considers packets of sugar an acceptable food choice, and has no problems cursing at her three daughters – but underneath her tough, no-nonsense exterior, it’s easy to forget that she is not much older than the people in the class, and still very much a young adult. What she lacks in class and parenting skills, however, she makes up for in maternal instinct; when her youngest, a chubby, delightful baby boy, is in danger, she leaps into action and goes into hysterics – as any parent I know would do.

However, while the film focuses on Zoe’s attempt to be a fitting mother, she is not the one that commands the screen. It is her oldest daughter that captures the attention and sympathy of the viewer the most, for she is the most motherly of the bunch and clearly looks out for her younger siblings before herself. The youngest daughter plays at the heartstrings as well – her baby doll in her makeshift carriage eerily echo her mother’s own attempts to take care of her youngest child – and sadly, the blonde little girl is infinitely better at it than her parent.

Interlaced with dark humor and a tale that doesn’t simply rely on sympathy for the flawed nature of it’s characters, Wasp is a film that is easily worthy of it’s Oscar title.

Andrea Arnold’s Oscar-winning short-film, Wasp, still has the same affect on me since the first time I saw it in 2008. Seeing it again, the element of the film that captured my attention was the gritty realism of it. It has a documentary style that falls in line with the film verite tradition: the shaky camera, the blurriness, the crispness of the cinematography. After a few years, I have finally realized what the film reminded me of — MTV’s True Life series. Wasp gives a unaltered, unedited feel; as if what is happening before your eyes is really what’s happening.

The symbolism gives much meaning and depth to the film. The double entendre of the title referred to not only the insect, wasp, which is in the film, but also to the historical context of the word. especially in American history, WASP was an acronym for white, anglo-saxon, protestant, a term for those who were usually the wealthiest and socially dominant. However, we see a play on that term. The main character, Zoe, is a poor white mother living in a public housing area with four children that she can barely take care of. From her cursing to her basically neglecting her children, she is definitely not the best mother ever. However, the film does show how Zoe feels trapped and lonely. One of the earlier scenes depicts a wasp who is trapped behind a window and panically trying to escape. Zoe feels like that wasp; she wants to go out on dates, such as the one she has with Dave, and go out and have fun, but she has responsibility. However, Zoe finds out that she is not alone as she thought she was; Dave is turns out to be more of a gentleman than he appears at the beginning. From those two elements of the film, Wasp deserved the Oscar.