Tideland (again)

I know i posted this review last year but this is suck an over looked film and something of a diamond in the rough. people need to check this little film out. I don't want people to forget about this film. it's the best film I've seen in the last few years. Here's the review



Tideland is the 10th film by Director Terry Gilliam ( Brazil, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, 12 Monkeys). Gilliam adapted this film from the Novel of the same title, written by Mitch Cullin. The Movie is prefaced with a short monologue by Gilliam telling the viewer that most people will not like this film and many will hate it. It’s a specialty film that was not made for the masses. He also said this entire movie is skewed from reality and is told through the eyes and perspective of a child. At the end of the day Gilliam does care if you enjoyed the film, as long as after you see it it makes you think. With that said the film is nor confusing or as shocking as one might think at first viewing. Tideland does not adhere to a formula or follow an adult’s logical conclusion. Not many movies these days can you watch and really have no idea what direction it’s going to go in.

Now it’s not just a movie with random scenes that don’t really fit into the bigger narrative structure of the story or of a conventional told story, it certainly has all those character elements transitions, and climax a movie needs to be entertaining. This movie defiantly satisfies my hunger for rich and interesting characters. Tideland is the smallest of Gilliam’s other projects, completely independent, free from any studio involvement, so the scale is much small and much more intimate which servers to the advantage of a story like this one.

The main character is Jaliza-Rose, a nine year old child that has to tend to her junkie parents (Jennifer Tilly and Jeff Bridges) she helps ready her fathers Heroine injections and tends to he belligerent mothers whims and mood swings till one day her mother drops dead, Anna Nicole style. Jeliza and her father then pack up and leave to an old farm house that her father, Noah (Played by Bridges, who is a washed up rock star) bought for his now dead mother. The house is old, run down and in the middle of nowhere surrounded by fields of wheat and grain. This is a direct contrast from Jeliza-Rose’s urban upbringing.

Despite these never ending struggles and horrible situations she is forced to deal with, Jeliza-Rose is a very spirited and fun loving little girl. She uses her imagination to escape these horrors of her reality. She makes believe and escapes with help from her four imaginary friends that are old doll heads she wears on her fingers. They all have different personalities that mirror her true feeling, one is pretty, and smart and confident, one is disfigured and ugly, one is very scared and one is just a stupid supermodel type, not really knowing what’s going on. .

This film is sweet, and yet disturbing. Gilliam touches on a lot of Taboos dealing with a young girl that have many people thinking he crossed the line. This film is not gory and there is no real acts of violence in it but some of the images will shock you and many moments of suspense that really make you feel terror for this child. Gilliam has tagged this movie “Alice in wonderland meets Psycho.” it’s a very fitting description.

The movie is carried by the young actress playing the lead named Jodelle Ferland. She is in almost every shot in the movie and has many speaking parts using different voices and accents. She blows away anything that hack Dakota Fanning ever did. Why, because she’s not playing a nine year old, she is being a nine year old. So many young actresses are playing more grow up then a child would act in those situations. Another notable performance is by Brendan Fletcher who played the mentally inept “Dickens” who befriends young Jelliza-Rose. His performance is so moving I had to look to see if he was really mental deficient, he’s that good, (I am Sam and Forest Gump, eat your heart out). The movie is really about the resiliency of a child to cope with terrible things and how a child can endure and survive, sometimes much better than an adult. It’s about a child using her imagination to try to understand things that no child should ever have to deal with.

There are so many other elements like religious hypocrisy that are touched open very briefly without being over explained or thrown in your face. It gets you thinking instead of telling you what to think like in such acclaimed Hollywood films like “Crash” that critics thought was so poignant and relevant but it nowhere in the film did it leave anything subjective or open ended, “this behavior is good and this behavior is bad,” Not in this film

Gilliam is one of my favorite directors working today and is one of the most creative since the likes of Kubrick. Critics hated, I mean hated this movie. I couldn’t believe when it came out late last year that it was received so poorly, it almost scared me away, thank good I learned a while ago that most critics are not worth the price of the word processing software they use to write their reviews.

I can’t fault all of them for not liking this movie and I’m sure there will be at least one person who reads this review that goes and watches it and say’s ‘what a stupid movie” and you know, that’s ok. It’s one of those personal films that I like knowing that not everyone will enjoy it this movie is a delight to watch and I have no problem popping it in a getting engrossed in the story and characters over and over again. If you’re open minded to a unique film or you can say you’re a Gilliam fan you’ll walk away with something from this film.