  We consider a system consisting of $5$ dimensional gravity with a negative
cosmological constant coupled to a massless scalar, the dilaton. We construct a
black brane solution which arises when the dilaton satisfies linearly varying
boundary conditions in the asymptotically $AdS_5$ region. The geometry of this
black brane breaks rotational symmetry while preserving translational
invariance and corresponds to an anisotropic phase of the system. Close to
extremality, where the anisotropy is big compared to the temperature, some
components of the viscosity tensor become parametrically small compared to the
entropy density. We study the quasi normal modes in considerable detail and
find no instability close to extremality. We also obtain the equations for
fluid mechanics for an anisotropic driven system in general, working upto first
order in the derivative expansion for the stress tensor, and identify
additional transport coefficients which appear in the constitutive relation.
For the fluid of interest we find that the parametrically small viscosity can
result in a very small force of friction, when the fluid is enclosed between
appropriately oriented parallel plates moving with a relative velocity.
