The Selfish Giant Analysis

The Selfish Giant is a 2013 British drama written and directed by Clio Barnard. The film was inspired by Oscar Wilde’s children’s book ‘The selfish giant’. It is about two thirteen year old friends, Arbor (Conner Chapman) and Swifty (Shaun Thomas) who seek wealth from a local scrap dealer. It runs for 91 minutes and made £602,866 in the box office.

The film contained themes of friendship, crime, jealousy, family, and devastation. The very first scene showed the first feeling of friendship when Arbor is angry and is banging against his bed. Swifty tries to calm him down by holding his hand. The grip Swifty has on his hand looks quite tight and eventually Arbor does the same. This shows the strong bond between them because the hold is quite tight. When Arbor is under his bed shouting, it almost seems like he is trapped, he is banging on the bed in an attempt to escape. This links to fish tank with the theme of entrapment. This film also links to fish tank because at the beginning it shows an establishing shot of a field with horses and at the start of fish tank and establishing shot is shown of her town. Swifty also had an abusive father and in Fish Tank Mia had an abusive mother.

Crime is shown when Swifty and Arbor arrive at a train track on a horse and notice some men cutting some wire for scrap, but when the men hide from others that arrive at the scene Arbor takes his chance to steal the wire. When Arbor and Swifty arrive at a local scrap dealer we also find out that the boys stole the horse which belonged to the scrap dealer.

Jealousy comes in a little later in the film because Swifty starts to bond with the scrap dealer Kitten (Sean Gilder) about horse racing and slowly starts spending more time with Kitten leaving Arbor to feel unwanted and jealous.

Although family is a theme it is not shown in a good light because Arbor is constantly arguing with his brother. His brother Martin (Elliot Tittensor) appears to be addicted to drugs including taking his brothers ADHD tablets. The siblings don’t get on and this is made obvious by their language. They are constantly swearing at one another and Arbor’s brother even makes fun of Arbor for his ADHD by calling him a ‘spaz’. The family is troubled and don’t get along, they always seemed to be in an argument throughout the scene. However in one scene when his mum is crying Arbor comes over and hugs her. A close up of this hug is shown to show that there is love within the family.

Devastation is the last theme to be shown when Swifty passes away, Arbor devastation is made clear and the performances here are spectacular. This is a really sad scene because throughout the film they the performances audience to like and get to know the characters so when one dies many emotions are felt. Before Swifty dies a foul is shown, and this foul has died by electrocution which foreshadows Swifty’s death later in the film.

The cinematography was really effective especially when they used the shadows to represent the people. When Arbor is first underneath his bed he is shown as a shadow which perhaps shows his unhappiness and that his life is dark. When both Arbor and Swifty where going out during the night, you saw them run across a field (with Swifty on a horse) and they were shadows. But they were soon lit up more because they are together so shows how calm Arbor is when he is with Swifty and how much more relaxed he feels with him rather than his family. The lighting was dark throughout; even during the day the sky was filled with grey clouds this shows that they will never have a bright day.

I enjoyed the scene after Swifty had died and Arbor was under the bed again because he was so upset and didn’t want to talk to anyone. During this scene a hand is shown grabbing Arbor’s and the hand is then shown to belong to Swifty. This was a powerful scene because although we know that Swifty is dead it makes us want to believe he is back. Swifty holding Arbor’s hand and he lay under the bed was also the first scene to be shown of the film. This makes us question whether it’s a new scene or a speechless version of the first one. I think it would have been quite clever to have shown one of the last scenes at the beginning.