What Synoptic Publicity Says
Director Wendi Tang’s FISHTANK: Winner of the 8th Tribeca x Chanel Through Her Lens Program. Winner of the 2022 Film Pipeline Short Script Competition
Tang’s stunning new short FISHTANK follows Jules (Tiffany Chu), Chinese American, who has been sober for a year but can’t stop vomiting goldfish. Things take an unexpected turn when she meets a fish enthusiast. This surreal drama combines traditional narrative with experimental elements to challenge audiences’ understanding of the norms ingrained in society.
Director Wendi Tang
So Says the WORD
Reviewing a film whose creator set forth with experimental elements to challenge audiences’ understanding of the norms ingrained in society can be challenging for reviewers who want to advise their readers what’s in their best interests. As I’m composing this review – no doubt 5 stars – I think I’m finally psyching out, or at least getting the pulse of, this striking, enigmatic, 17-minute short by promising director, Wendi Tang.
However, it took more than one screening of FISHTANK for me to get comfortable. I won’t say how many times.🤣 I want my readers to take note of my auguring.🤣
I think I’ve pretty much deciphered the surreal and the enigmatic for a review article that doesn’t spoil nor despoil the cinematic surprises in Director Tang’s deftly made flick. However, FISHTANK also required a different approach to reviewing it – audiences may have to keep eyes and ears more wider open than usual.
To see FISHTANK trailer click on the blue “Learn More” below.
Tang’s main protagonist, Jules, nattily played by actress Tiffany Chu, is a recovering alcoholic who pukes Carassius auratus of the family Cyprinidae, order of Cypriniformes: That is, goldfish – but only under particular circumstances. Audiences should know up front that the puking-vomiting scenes in FISHTANK are not the repulsive, disgusting expectoration usually associated with upchucking and expectorating – like the kind you might see on NYC subways.
The upchucked are alive, look healthy, not slimy nor repulsive, though they gasp-gulp until Jules scoops them into thermoses or water bottles or whatever available H20 containers she can muster at the time, taking them back to her apartment where she has numerous sizeable fishtanks with very colorful swimmers. Nevertheless, I’m sure PETA would have no problems with FISHTANK.
FISHTANK most certainly does not fit into sci-fi or horror genres nor any of their subcategories. The director’s savvy use of “traditional” film narrative with experimental elements at first had this reviewer jumping here and there through a loop or two while almost mesmerizing him at the same time. So, I’m just saying here that audiences may have to jump through a few loops.
Jules, played by Tiffany Chu
Early scenes plausibly indicate that Jules pukes gold, so to speak, when she encounters misogynistic males. The degree of the misogyny ranges from those on-the-make to piss-poor catcallers (more of them on the prowl, so to speak, than the latter.) Let’s face it: Misogyny in the real world is omnipresent and in many forms. [A glaring example: E. Jean Carroll vs. MAGA Existential Menace Donald Trump.]
Audiences up for seeing a really good movie at the 2024 HollyShorts should know that this reviewer not once came close to retching while watching this deftly made 17-minute short.
Admittedly, there might be pre-ticket purchasing suspicions about fish puking but – one more time – the scenes are considerably less foreboding than those images of yesteryear when – especially in those mass transit cattle car environs – sneezing, coughing and all other manner of expectorating without the covering mouths and noses as many did when COVID was running amuck.
Matt, played solidly by Isaac Jay
Ticket lines swelled with those who flocked to Ridley Scotts’ Xenomorph-Punching-Through-Chest-Cavities (a 5-star movie ever there was one and so were a few of the sequels), but I would be surprised if there will be much hesitance about seeing a well-made movie about a woman who pukes gold because of misogynistic experiences and encounters.
I expect audiences will also become so wrapped up in FISHTANK as I am did that they too will experience a cinematic nonchalance that will allow them to embrace the film despite it being as enigmatic as it is. Which brings me to this: What does a fish say when it runs into a concrete wall?
What Does a Fish Say When It Runs into a Concrete Wall
Jules attends an AA meeting where she meets Matt who introduces himself to the gathering at large as an alcoholic two years sober who likes to ask jokes. This is where the writer-reviewer got jammed and has to step back from earlier comments about not being flummoxed by experimental elements.
Part of Matts’ salutation to the AA group, following up a quip about the joy of him asking jokes is this: What does a fish say when it runs into a concrete wall?
There is a moment of silence as the camera shows a few faces. Jules’ response is awesome: “Dam?” Matt looks Jules dead in the eye, saying, mouthing, “Stupid.” And – OMG?!?! – they intimately couple up at her place after the meeting. The remaining 14 minutes or so about the affair of a goldfish heaver and an ichthyophile was … I wrote earlier that I had deciphered the surreal and the enigmatic in FISHTANK. Well, this writer-reviewer is still working on it. What takes place will open eyes and ears if the eyes and ears are ready to be open.
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Editor, Reviewer, Publisher Gregg W. Morris
Can be reached at gregghc@comcast.net, profgreggwmorris@gmail.com