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TIDELAND (Dir. Terry Gilliam, 2006) Only film fans who haven't been paying attention would be unaware of Terry Gilliam's near complete ostracisation from the world of commercial film. The ex-Monty Python member is notorious for ferociously fighting major studio heads, plentiful production problems, and wildly going over budget leaving numerous projects stalled in development hell and making him ineligible to direct movies he would be perfect for - Harry Potter for example. If one were to put on the DVD for TIDELAND having not read anything about it (and with little to no promotion that's very possible) they may be surprised to see Gilliam at the beginning of the film giving a disclaimer/introduction. In a shadowy grainy black and white headshot that's as scary an image as anything in TIDELAND Gilliam states :

"Many of you are not going to like this film. Many of you luckily are going to love it. And then there are many of you who won't know what to think when the film finishes but hopefully you will be thinking."

He goes on to explain that the film is seen through the eyes of an innocent child and that while viewing it one should forget what they know as a cynical adult. Easier said than done but once TIDELAND gets going it casts a long lasting spell as potent as one's most fantastical child-hood memory. The child in question in this adaptation of Mitch Cullin's 2000 novel is Jeliza-Rose (Jodelle Ferland) who has a SHINING-like habit of talking to her doll-head wearing fingers who each have personalities and voices of their own only heard by her. When her junkie mother Queen Gunhilda(a typically crazy Jennifer Tilly) dies early on from a heroin overdose, Jeliza-Rose's father Noah(Jeff Bridges doing what appears to be a Kris Kristofferson impression to ward off comparisons with Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski) buses them out to the country to hide out in his long deceased Mother's abandoned farmhouse. Then things start to get weird.

She soon meets her neighbors - the one-eyed witchy Dell (Janet McTeer) and the epileptic Dickens (Brendan Fletcher)who excitedely plots destruction by way of dynamite derailing a passing passenger train. Noah also dies of an overdose, from a fix prepared by Jeliza-Rose no less and Dell performs taxidermy on his corpse so it can still join them at a place at the dinner table come mealtimes - "he looks like a burrito" Jeliza-Rose exclaims. It's all seen in tilted camera angles and wide panoramic shots that enhance the orange wheatfields while still grounded in stark reality that threatens to escape periodically in Jeliza-Rose's Alice in Wonderland influenced dementia. The scenes between Fletcher and Ferland come close to having inappropriate sexual overtones but remembering Gilliam's warning and sensing the true tone should eliminate any uncomfortable tension.

TIDELAND appears to be the worst reviewed movie Gilliam has ever made. It has a 26% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.com (the site that tailies up the major critic's takes) and the words "ugly", "pointless", "murky" and especially "unwatchable" come up in just about every review. Well I'm going against the tide here - this is a moving and darkly beautiful masterpiece. Luckily I was among the ones who loved it.

Learn more about this author, Daniel Johnson.
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