Terry Gilliam’s movies surprises and shocks me every time. I am always left with a reaction of distress for all the movies I have watched of him. Still I constantly try to understand his prism view of darkness in every film. One by one in his movie, he pushes the envelope every time far beyond I can imagine. “Tideland” is no different.
In the strange lands of Gilliam is a little girl named Jeliza Rose (Jodelle Ferland) traveling down with her drug addict father Noah (Jeff Bridges). They travel after they wrap the body of Jeliza’s mother (Jennifer Tilly) who dies of drug overdose with her chocolates, shoes and whatever they thought she liked. Noah takes her in the hopes of finding a place to reside in his mother’s home, down Texas. They find an abandoned and wretched home. Indifferently both settle out there. Next day Noah lay motionless and we slowly realize that he died too of drug overdose. Little Jeliza is used to her daddy being like that for days. She starts exploring the lands and finds people. She befriends a mentally challenged man called Dickens (Brendan Fletcher). His elder sister Dell (Janet McTeer) looks scary but what am I talking, all of the characters are scary in a way. They are scary not due to their appearance but the actions.
Before the movie starts, Gilliam asks the audience to look the movie without any preconceptions and prejudice to really see the child in it and in them. Very true, since the material is disturbing at times and especially when the story takes the turn of Dickens and little Jeliza expressing in a way which would scandalize. I do accept that the character of Dickens is of the same age in mind as that of Jeliza. It would be reasonable to be in a book written by Mitch Cullin from which it is been adapted, since it does not involve real people. Here we are talking about a real man and a real kid. I am not sure whether Jodelle growing up would have an impact due to this movie. May be it will mould her or may be not. But I feel it is not right to use a kid to a story which has content to put images that she cannot grasp or take in full context or nature of it. While I sincerely acknowledge the acting skills of Jodelle Ferland and Brendon Fletcher, the acts on the screen are not suitable for Jodelle.
Coming back to the movie, Gilliam creates a land of unknown territories and imagination. The fantasy we have seen in lot of stories and movies are sweet and colourful and “Tideland” is colourful too in a bizarre manner to be precise. I tend not to use the words in most of my reviews such as bizarre, weird and strange. I substitute those with out of usual or normal. The reason is that normal is man made and it can vary ridiculously from person to person. Labeling it weird or bizarre is prejudiced and judgmental. “Tideland” is bizarre. It is bizarre for its artful representation so uninteresting, irritating and at times shocking. I clearly did not enjoy the movie but cannot miss the fact that it produced the emotion it aimed for, bizarre.
I did not grasp any remote, symbolic, cryptic, straight forward and cinematic art in the movie at any place or instance or scene or time. The child is the only thing which keeps it glued but that too morphs into behaviour of darkness. A darkness of innocence which is mystic and scary. All I can come up with is that the child has a mind which is convoluted, puzzled depicting the cruelty and reality of the world it imposes on it. The adventure of her imagination may be silly and scandalizing but that is the truth every one is hiding from or may be their inner devil. I wonder why some one would like to see it on a screen with no redemption or recreation?
In Gilliam’s initial screen talk, he says that some people will not like it and some will love it. He is honest and I appreciate it. His talk applies to most of the movies. The dark side of me of course thinks that he did it as a safety net. An excuse to reason the people out pointing fingers at it for its darkish and shocking portrayal of a child’s adventure in gross and disturbing visual. But may be the sides which I assume as the true side of making me think he is honest for all the reason might be the dark side. Welcome to “Tideland”.
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