Most Fertile for Studying: Lost in Translation, Fish Tank, or The Hurt Locker?

[dreamdead]

So general parameters. I teach an English unit at a university that includes film and the politics of representation, with each film receiving one week of study and then students choosing one of those three films to develop out a coherent 6-page argument utilizing three academic sources. I have room for three films and this semester I am using Justin Lin's Better Luck Tomorrow and Justin Simien's Dear White People, focusing on race, satire, and cultural resistance.

For the third film, I want to draw from a female filmmaker who has received enough academic study to allow students critical angles into the film. My planned options are Sophia Coppola's Lost in Translation, Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank, or Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker. On some level, I'm looking for a contemporary, approachable film that students can identify with on some level. More than that, though, I'm looking for whichever film has the most fertile cultural commentary.

Any advice is naturally welcome.

[Peng]

Hmm, I dearly love Lost in Translation, but for the subject of your course, I feel like Fish Tank is the best out of those options.

My own submissions for this would be either Celine Sciamma's Tomboy or Haifaa al-Mansour's Wadjda, the latter espeically.

[baby doll]

Lost in Translation is pretty boring, so I wouldn't recommend subjecting your students to it. And while Fish Tank is obviously superior to An Education (which tells basically the same story but in a more posh milieu), that's not saying a whole lot. The Hurt Locker is pretty good and it might be worthwhile to examine its unacknowledged political biases since most US reviewers praised it for being an "apolitical" Iraq War movie. But then, if it doesn't have to be an English-language film, you might consider one of Claire Denis' postcolonial films (Chocolat, Beau travail, and White Material), which are more fun to watch.

[ledfloyd]

I think Hurt Locker and Lost in Translation have a lot of depth to mine, but I would also back baby doll's Claire Denis suggestion.

[Melville]

Lost in Translation would provide a lot of opportunity for students to argue about its use of culture for its own ends, but I don't think those ends really have much to do with cultural commentary. For films that have more interesting things to say specifically about culture, all of baby doll's Denis suggestions are stronger options, I think, particularly Chocolat. But they're far less accessible.

I haven't seen Fish Tank and don't remember much of The Hurt Locker.

[Ezee E]

Fish Tank. Not many have seen it, and there's a lot to discuss there with gender, race, class, and age.

[Stay Puft]

I'd also throw in for Fish Tank. The kids love Michael Fassbender.

[D_Davis]

My vote goes for The Hurt Locker, a film I think is pretty great. Also really like the director, and can see her filmography in general being discussed as she typically works in genres more often attributed to male directors.

Lost in Translation has got to be one of the most vapid and shallow films I've ever seen. Nothing going on except for its surface level pop-culture gawking. One of the few films that left me feeling angry for having completely wasted my time with it's utter nonsense. It's the Boondock Saints of its genre.

Haven't seen Fish Tank, but now I want to.