Tideland

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Jordan, Amberly, Bree

One of Terry Gilliams most divisive films. Some people think it's his best work and some people think it is unimaginable garbage. I'm in the former category. I think the film makes a great litmus test. I can maybe see how this film upset people but not to the degree I read about when the film was released.

First of, I think Jodelle Ferland is remarkable. She's also great at playing evil demonic children in every other film but here she is the lead and carries the audience into the world as viewed through her eyes. I think it's one of the best examples of a childlike sense of wonder and imagination every captured on screen. Gilliam manages to create such a frenzy of chaos but also an excitement of wild joy at the same time. This film always just sucks me in to that mind state.

The other brilliant thing I love about the film is the position the audience are put in. We are watching the film's events play out through her point of view but tat the same time can look at the situations objectively and be completely horrified by the things she does not understand or chooses to ignore. Drug use, abuse, mental illness, death, sex, all the good stuff is there but she is blissfully ignorant and so while she ignores it and continues to play happily the audience can either cower in fear or go on the journey with her.

Being a Gilliam film you know it's going to have some great visuals. There is his usual use of the ultra wide angle throughout and some nice dream sequence trippyness. The music is great too and helps set tone in a lot of places that would have been really ambiguous otherwise. With a different score this could have been a flat out child abuse horror film but instead it is a strange dream like melancholy.

Jeff Bridges!

This one kinda slipped out under the raider a few years back, which is a shame because I think it is a monumental work from Gilliam and shows such a more mature restraint with theme and character at the forefront. I really love this film. Please see it now.