Tideland

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 filmGilliam 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.

In most of my comments I try to give a reader objective information with which to determine whether they might like a film and in some cases I point out details to look for during the viewing process. Doing this for "Tideland" (2005) is quite a challenge. Personally I really enjoyed the film, but I clearly fall into its relatively narrow target audience and this is one film that does not compromise its vision to expand its viewer base.The first thing to understand is that this is a horror film, it's not a fantasy adventure or a black comedy (although there are arguably some elements from each genre). Jodelle Ferland, who plays the main character, hit the mark about the casting when she said: "They like to cast me for scary roles. I think it's because they want you to be scared, but also to like the little girl."I think it is a very scary film, probably even scarier for children, many of whom would find it extremely entertaining even though they probably should not be allowed to watch it. Which is a good way to think about the whole thing; it's a film where those likely to connect with it the strongest are not mature enough to view it. Making its valid target audience those who still view much of the world through the eyes of their internal child.It is an American Gothic version of "Alice and Wonderland", and little heroine Jeliza-Rose (Ferland) shares many of Alice's virtues; innocence, courage, curiosity, wonder, kindness, intelligence, courtesy, dignity, and a sense of justice. The main difference is that Jeliza- Rose does not share Alice's irritation with the rude and illogical characters they encounter in their respective wonderlands. Alice is a confident and proper little Victorian girl who expects a certain standard of behavior while Jeliza-Rose is the neglected daughter of two flaming junkies (Jeff Bridges and Jennifer Tilly) who is skilled at making the best of a variety of sucky situations."Tideland" has the look (cinematography) and feel of Terrance Malick's "Days of Heaven". Both were made by a director who knew how something felt, and found a way to evoke it in us. It is how a child feels when it lives precariously but knows security and joy for brief periods, and then each time that is taken away wipes off the tears and pretends it doesn't hurt. Both stories are told from the point of view of a young girl. In "Tideland", "Days of Heaven's" voice-over commentary is replaced by the conversations Jeliza-Rose has with her four dolls (really just the heads of dolls) and a squirrel; in which she supplies the all voices. Jeliza-Rose's point of view is strongly reinforced by a child level camera position. Although the camera techniques call attention to themselves it is all at the service of POV.Ferland's performance (to Gilliam's acting for the camera direction) was extraordinary and even Oscar worthy. And the power she brings to the juxtaposition of the film's images is an editor's dream. This stuff is the film's most elemental feature and I cannot imagine anyone enjoying the film if they do not connect with it. Fortunately you can predict your connection just by viewing "Tideland's" promotional poster, which shows a very tiny Jeliza-Rose sitting on the branch of gnarled tree, the tree is turned upside down against a Grant Wood style background ( or Andrew Wyeth's 1948 "Christina's World" painting).The adult characters are so weird and wild that Jeliza-Rose's inner child sessions with the four dolls' heads she has turned into finger-puppets (Sateen Lips, Glitter Gal, Mystique and Baby Blonde) provide the film's sanest moments."Tideland" is an adaptation of Mitch Cullin's 2000 cult novel. After her mother OD's on a mix of methadone and chocolate, a little girl is taken by her father to his boyhood home, an abandoned farmhouse out on the prairie where the only trace of society is the occasional passing train and a very odd brother and sister who live nearby. Soon left to her own devices the girl entertains herself by exploring her grandmother's house and trying to make friends with the weird neighbors.Most everything is shown on a gritty realist level, making the occasional fantasy scenes even more effective. In retrospect, the film and the Jeliza-Rose character, channel a lot from "To Kill a Mockingbird", with Ferland playing a disquietingly mad version of Mary Badham's Scout and Brendan Fletcher an energetic Boo Radley.Then again, what do I know? I'm only an inner child.

This is one of my favorite movies, but I can't watch it often at all, lol. It is so screwed up. You'll need a light-hearted, pallet cleanser something or other to watch after it. Prepare to be uncomfortable and worried if you watch this, lol.

Not the kind of movies I like to watch. Drugs and physical and emotional neglect of a child

Terry Gilliam pretty much sums up what I would say about this gem of a movie in his introduction on the DVD. "If it's shocking, it's because it's innocent." {You'll know what I mean when you see it}. And it is true, you will either love it or you will hate it. It's easy to tell why for both reasons. He directs a very interesting and creative interpretation of Alice in Wonderland. I personally liked it a lot, and it's very interesting to see a modern, twisted version of Wonderland as a child's odd imagination: Throughout Tideland, Jeliza-Rose is kept company by her doll's heads on her fingers while roaming the prarie looking for imaginative adventure. She gets more than she bargained for after meeting some strange people with even stranger intentions. Not only that, but reality becomes ancient history with the stuff she experiences because of her "over-spontaneous" imagination and a few squirrels...I also thoroughly enjoyed the interview with Terry Gilliam on the second special features DVD. He talked about the tough times in making the film, and he talks about the easy ones, and he also speaks about working with the actors. It can be funny that even he forgot certain aspects about the details of the film, such as the names of Jeliza-Rose's doll heads.If you keep an open mind about Tideland, you're bound to enjoy it as much as I did with some quite amazing performances. I recommend it for anyone who wants to go on a fun kind of journey into the unpredictably strange.

This is not a review of Terry Gilliam's film 'Tideland' – rather it is my review of the DVD versus the Blu-ray version.Do not buy the DVD. Get the Blu-ray if you can. I am not hard-of-hearing but some movies need subtitles – either because the actors or their characters don't enunciate clearly or the audio mix favours sound effects over dialogue or – as is the case here, the characters have strong Southern American accents.First I bought a DVD version that, when I started watching I realised that although the dialogue was all in English the film was presented with over-sized French subtitles. So I searched around in the menu for English subtitles: no English subtitles; not even an option to turn off the French subtitles. Why would French viewers need permanent subtitles? Now, I like watching foreign films as much as the next person, but I don't expect to watch an English language film with French subs. It was very distracting, to be honest. So I contacted the vendor and they were most apologetic, and my money was refunded immediately. The lesson here is before you buy any DVD, study the cover carefully. If it's got French words on it you probably shouldn't buy it, unless you're French that is – or unless the film in question is 'Papillon' or 'Emmanuelle' or some other-such title.Then I had another go. I bought the real English DVD, but after watching it for 20 minutes I realised why French viewers would need permanent subtitles. I was going to have trouble following the dialogue – and I'm English. So I looked in the menu for subtitles: no subtitles in any language on the DVD. That is odd, and it made the film unwatchable.Finally I bought the Blu-ray Special Edition* and Hooray! Optional English subtitles! (but alas, no other languages, so if you're French, search for that French version. Anyway, as well as English subs, there's a commentary by Gilliam, a making-of documentary -or two, deleted scenes, and lots more. It's sort of what we've come to expect from regular DVDs though (apart for the high-definition), and I don't think I should have had to fork out for the Blu-ray just to understand the dialogue. Having said that, I'm glad I did. And it's a fabulous, disturbing, magical film!(*I cannot vouch for any non-special edition version)

If could be argued that Tideland muddies the waters of innocence. Heck, Terry Gilliam has created the murkiest of murky lakes, and he's asking us to dive right in. As the director explains in his introduction (a rarely welcome indulgence, but vital here), we should always remember to watch this movie through the eyes of its protagonist, little Jeliza-Rose (a brilliant, utterly convincing Jodelle Ferland). The first hour is all about her and her best friend, a doll's head called Martinique, exploring the attics and fields of their new home, and the fantastical adventures they create together. But with the introduction of the barking mad Dell (Janet McTeer) and her retarded brother Dickens (Brendan Fletcher), events take a more sinister turn. By the end of the movie we witness, in her relationship with the latter, the first glimpses of adulthood in Jeliza-Rose. She is commanding of Dickens, demanding even; while he will never have the chance to grow up, we glimpse the woman Jeliza-Rose is becoming. Worse, in her heavy makeup she resembles her late mother, the ghastly Queen Gunhilda (Jennifer Tilly).Tideland makes fascinating demands of us as an audience. Gilliam steals much of the glee from his grim. We often feel repulsed. Why? Because as adults, with all our neuroses and preconceptions, we can no longer regress and observe the world around us from a position of innocence. We can judge Gilliam - not harshly, I hope, for all his laudable ambitions - but we cannot judge Jeliza-Rose. Moreover, we cannot *help* Jeliza-Rose. (This is what gives Tideland its strange, elusive power, I think.) And with the final shot, tragically, you wonder if it's too late for anyone in our world to help her... should she ever return.

Great Gilliam film, with lots of extra features, well worth the small price.

Avoid like the plague

Very good