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Capone Visits TIDELAND!!
SPOILER ALERT !!
Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.
I think this is my next priority in a theater. I haven't seen it yet, and with very few exceptions, I love Gilliam's work. I hope this one sneaks up on me and kicks my ass.
Hey, everyone. Capone in Chicago here. I'd gone out of my way to learn virtually nothing about this film since I'd read that horrible things were being said about for more than year. I'd go so far as to leave the room if people started talking about it. I find Terry Gilliam works best when he takes you by surprise surprise.
The best part of director Gilliam’s strange and surreal children’s tale is a newly filmed opening introduction by Gilliam. But the more I thought about it, the more it made me angry. He’s essentially daring us to like or not like Tideland. He says something like “Some of you will not like this movie; some of you will love it,” and I agree; there aren’t going to be too many people on the fence about Gilliam’s take on “Alice in Wonderland.” But the introduction is essentially him saying, If you’re one of the cool kids, you’ll like this movie; if you’re a square, you’ll hate it. So here’s the truth: there is much to love about Tideland, but if you tell me you hated it, I won’t argue with you.
Jeliza-Rose (a strong performance by Jodelle Ferland) is prone to vivid imagination to the point where it’s possible she’s mentally ill. Or perhaps her fantasy world is her way of escaping the junkie lifestyle that her parents (Jeff Bridges and Jennifer Tilly) subject her to on a daily basis. Her best friends are a collection of doll heads, each with a distinctive personality and voice (provided by Ferland). Mom overdoses early in the film, and dad and Jeliza-Rose begin what is meant to be a long journey. But at their first stop at an isolated house in the middle of nowhere, her father dies to (although she thinks he’s just sleeping, which leads to the first of many ultra-creepy realities of this film). She plays during the day with her doll heads, and curls up on dad’s dead rotting lap at the end of the day to talk.
The film takes flight when she meets a grown-up brother and sister living in a nearby house, and it’s probably right around this point in the story where you will either embrace what the film is doing or you’ll outright reject it. Gilliam claims her discovered his inner child before making this film, and it shows. The story and dialogue ramble and stagger like the mind of a child, never focusing on one thing for more than a minute or so before flying off in another direction, whichever way the wind is blowing or the brightest light is flashing. I really admired Janet (Tumbleweeds; Songcatcher) McTeer’s performance as the sister, Dell, who looks like a witch but really isn’t that scary once you get to know her. The retarded brother, Dickens (Brendan Fletcher), is closer in mental age to Jeliza-Rose, and the pair have all sorts of imaginary adventures amidst the junk that surrounds his house.
There is nothing resembling a cohesive story in Tideland, and if that bothers you, so be it. But the film fascinated me, sometimes because what was going on onscreen was undeniably interesting. But sometimes I was just amazed how Gilliam’s mind works (and that of co-screenwriter Tony Grisoni, both of whom adapted this from the novel by Mitch Cullin). He’s a filmmaker whose worst movies are far more interesting that 90 percent of what makes it in theatres on any given week. Here, he puts his mind and eyes into the body of a child. The camera is almost always low to the ground and in motion. He remembers what it’s like to find wonder and adventure no matter how bland your surrounding might be. Everything is a toy, whether it’s a decapitated Barbie doll or your father’s decomposing corpse. I think it’s safe to say that Tideland is not a children’s movie; but it is a imaginative look at the mind of a child who has been through hell even though she doesn’t realize it. If you’re feeling experimental yourself, give this one a shot.
Capone
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Oct 20, 2006 3:13:55 AM CDT
im so pissed that i will never see this in theaters.
by s0nicdeathmonkey
yup.
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I live in blenheim in the marlborough region of the south island of nz. home of hobbits and very late if ever release dates.. This weeks new release is Rambo III. They actually didnt show Brkoeback here cos of the bum love...this weeks big release is actually garfield 2... give me strength....
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Ah bollocks to it. wasnt it henry hill who said ' if you put on a film fetival they will come' so im gonna do just that. a fuckin super cool film festival set at all the wineries around here. WHOS WITH ME!!!???
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I saw "Tideland" one week ago at Sitges Film Festival. And it has been a really frustrating experience to me. I've always enjoyed early gilliam works and I will always be a defender of "The Fisher King", but in "Tideland" Gilliam has lost that magic equilibrium between reality and fantasy that have made him great. One of the more important problems in "Tideland" is that the real world is weirdest than the fantasy world, and this doesn't work to me. How can I understand the fantasy if it is visually weaker than reality? Gilliam is a great director, he is also a very creative artist and "Tideland" is obviously a very personal movie, but it also is his worst film. Even the impersonal "Brothers Grimm" movie had more sense than this boring film. I think Gilliam's fans deserve more.
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Wasn't impressed. Not concerned about the subject matter, it just didn't do anything for me. I blame the emotional void that is the little, "Silent Hill" girl. The kid can't act for shit. As for the movie, it was trying to hard to be weird and veered off into boring the piss out of me. I love Terry Gilliam, but this will be the one flick I leave out of the collection.
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I agree that his worst are on par with most directors' best movies. I absolutely love Baron Munchausen, so I don't consider that one of his worst, and Brothers Grimm wasn't a bad movie at all, just a bad Gilliam movie. But I still liked it. It's very much a fairy tale, about fairy tales and fables. It reminded me a little of Sleepy Hollow.
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Many people who are movie geeks and snobs will claim it's good because it's so different and strange. That doesn't make a good movie. This film is terrible, and the worst of Gilliam's career.
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The thing that makes this movie distrubing is that we don't really see things from the girls point of view. Unlike Brazil or Fisher King, we are outsiders looking in. When she's talking to her father, we don't see the red knight or the samurai, we see the rotting corpse sitting in a chair. This is, in a way, the opposite of the usual gilliam movie. The themes are the same, but there's no joy in the fantasy. If you were expecting the same sense of light-hearted escape from reality, I can see how that disapointment would color the whole movie. This is dark shit. I was very surprised how dark this movie is, I didn't know Gilliam had it in him. I really liked Tideland, but I would say the saem thing as Capone. If youre feeling experimental, or just mental, give it a shot.
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From EW, "For certain filmmakers, a disastrous folly is something they have to get out of their system; for others, it's closer to something they have to pass — like a gallstone or stomach gas. Terry Gilliam's dour, absurdist, gruesomely awful Tideland is of the latter, excretory variety. In the comparatively coherent opening scenes (everything's relative), Jeliza-Rose (Jodelle Ferland), a little girl who likes to play with scrappy disembodied doll heads, watches as her mother (Jennifer Tilly), a Nancy Spungen wannabe, expires with a croak from a methadone injection. The girl then goes off with her rock & roll junkie father (Jeff Bridges), whom she helps to shoot heroin, and a few minutes later he's dead as well, a corpse propped in a chair, with its purplish tongue sticking out.
Tideland might have taken its cue from that corpse: The movie dies early on, but it keeps hanging around, looking a little more rotten with each new scene. Orphaned, and stranded in a house that sits with arty isolation in a wheat field, Jeliza- Rose puts on lipstick, nattering to herself like a baby Blanche DuBois, and she makes ''friends'' with the inhabitants, notably a cowering dimwit yokel (Brendan Fletcher) who has a brain-surgery scar laced onto his skull. There's another corpse, a rabbit hole with zero wonder, and — why not? — a flirtation with pedophilia. But trying to decipher the ''signs'' of Tideland will get you nowhere. The only way to make sense of the film is to read it as a splatter painting of disgust...at a movie industry that Gilliam feels shut out by, and at the audience that he has apparently decided to punish as well."
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It's playing at the Nuart in LA this weekend (don't know for how long), so I'm all over this like flies on crap. 1:45 pm tomorrow... followed by The Prestige, and Marie Antoinette. I'd see FlyBoys too, but for some reason there aren't any theatres in SoCal carrying it. I mean... what the fuck is going on with that movie?
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she lays on his lap when hes dead...WIERD!
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is it only playing in Austin but not anywhere else in Texas? Harry I'm looking at you! Dallas has the Inwood, the Magnolia and the Angelika, all great places for it to be screened! Argh!
Oh well, I've waited for more than a year, I guess I can wait a little more for the DVD.
Oh, and the Brothers Grimm was shit, but I don't blame Gilliam, I blame the studio! -
Anyone else getting the Svankmajer vibe from "Tideland"? Haven't seen "Tideland" yet--just visited the wesbsite--but saw "Alice" a few weeks ago--wild, creepy, a must-see. This looks like a remake/reimagining. I mean the broken doll heads are pure Svankmajer.
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...while not necessarily Gilliam's fault, was virtually unwatchable.
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come on now- Monica Bellucci and her lovely rack are ALWAYS watchable...
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Does anyone know how to find out where/if this movie is playing?
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Sounds like Gilliam is trying to hard to make a movie like Brazil.
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I'll pay to see weird; a brilliant failure is better than watching MI-3,or some other repetitive film
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Please stop pimping that shit on every board. No-one is clicking your link
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At some point you have to say - it IS his fault. It's not always the studio. Sometimes it's just a self-indulgent man who won't be told when what he's making is shit
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Gilliam only made one shit movie (arguably two if you include Jabberwocky)... Brothers Grimm. Grimm, however, was a studio movie through-and-through and Gilliam did the best he could with the shit Ehren Kruger script, meager budget, and studio executive retards constantly looking over his shoulder. Name any other Gilliam movie that you feel qualifies as shit, sir, and I will call you tasteless and a liar.
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You're not gonna make friends or get any support here if you just mindlessly pimp.
Anyway, this movie looks great and I look forward to anything by Gilliam, particularly with Jeff Bridges involved!
BTW, I saw "Children of Men" on friday and it was FUCKING INCREDIBLE. Holy shit on a stick, it was orgiestic perfection. On technical mastery alone it blows anything I've seen for the last few years completely out of the water. I'm gonna see it again later in the week! -
I wrote that when inebriated. What I meant was that Gilliam blames everyone else when he doesn't get his own way. He just won't be told when he is going too far. Every writer needs an editor but Gilliam acts like to have anyone else interfere is sacrilege. Well sorry man - as beautiful and moving as his films have been at times he has also produced very self-indulgent dross. Tideland being a great example. Fear and Loathing as well. Sorry, I just hated it. If you like it then cool. I have loved many of his films and been unimpressed by others. Time Bandits was the fist film I ever saw on VHS (on a triple bill that also included The Empire Strikes Back and The Big Red One - how lucky was I??) and I have loved the guys vision ever since. But at a certain point you have to think - either work with different people or learn to be less confontational with the people who are -lets face it- putting up their money to fund your movie. Gilliam seems to go into projects with a chip on his shoulder and it shows
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Excellent movie, but very hard to watch. I'm positive that most people who see this will absolutely hate it (like the friend I dragged to the show with me), and I can't blame them. If you're a fan of Gilliam, or challenging, fucked up movies (Requiem for a Dream comes to mind), go see this.
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... even though it looks like Gilliam and/or Cullen have just ripped off Philip Ridley's The Reflecting Skin.
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This is exactly the way it is when a child disassociates from reality as a coping mechanism. My girlfriend, the least film-snobbish person in the world, and someone who hated F&LiLV & Time Bandits, said Tideland is possibly the best movie she's ever seen.
If you check your preconceptions at the door and hang firmly onto your own childish sense of wonder (the vagaries of childhood aren't always pretty), then this'll be one hell of a ride down the rabbit hole for you - moreso in my experience if you're someone who had a rough childhood. Just...cathartic. -
All here at:
http://filmick.blogspot.com/2006/11/tideland-2-disc-dvd-on-uk-shelves.html
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