At the beginning of the DVD presentation of Tideland, director Terry Gilliam removes any doubt that the film isn’t for everyone by, well, appearing on screen and telling us that the film isn’t for everyone. Those familiar with the work of this disastrously brilliant director, whose body of work (The Fisher King, Brazil, Twelve Monkeys) has been both lauded and reviled – sometimes simultaneously – might find little need for Gilliam to verbalize a notion already embodied in his work: “this is my creation, I love it, and you can take it or leave it.” Like the film itself, I can’t quite form an opinion of his decision to include a mandatory prologue. Optional filmmaker introductions are an occasional feature on DVDs, and I almost invariably opt out, preferring to see the film on my own terms. In this case, however, I think I am grateful for the warning. I wish there had been one for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, one of less than a handful of films I have intentionally stopped watching. That was several years ago, and a decision I have since come to regret. Yet I still haven’t mustered the stamina to try again.
Adapted from a novel of the same name, Tideland tells the story of a little girl named Jeliza-Rose, who spends the bulk of the film going from frying pan to fire to rock to hard place, all within the type of utterly whacked-out backwater world that is so stylistically Gilliam that one nearly expects to find his signature trampled into the golden fields of the film’s beautiful landscapes like some kind of alien crop circle. If there is any part of the film which deserves unqualified praise, it is the performance of Jodelle Ferland as Jeliza-Rose, who at the age of 10 (at the time of filming) gives one of the best performances of 2006. She was nominated for a Genie (the Canadian equivalent of the Oscar), and if the film weren’t so intentionally obtuse, she might have seen more nominations.
While clearly affected by her environment and circumstance, Jeliza-Rose relies on her precocious imagination to cope, and displays survival skills we often don’t credit to children (nor would we wish upon any child a reason for which to test them). In that regard, she is a character not unlike those found in two of my favorite recent films, Turtles Can Fly and Pan’s Labyrinth. Unlike Satellite and his gang, however, Jeliza-Rose is the victim not of political warfare but socioeconomic misfortune and her parent’s drug addiction. (The parents, played by Jeff Bridges and Jennifer Tilly, more or less exit quickly from the film’s narrative. Thankfully. Even in Gilliam’s absurdist version of reality, both needed to show a little more restraint.)
And unlike Ophelia in Pan’s Labyrinth, as Tideland progresses we are meant to question whether Jeliza-Rose’s coping mechanisms are beginning to fail. (Which is suggested by the fact that the voices she provides for her “friends” – a collection of tattered doll heads – begin to be heard without her moving her lips.) The child protagonist she most clearly evokes, however, is Bresson’s masterfully created Mouchette. Like the bumper car scene in that film, there is a series of scenes in Tideland, culminating in a feast, which provides a fleeting notion that everything will be alright.
Like Gilliam, I can’t recommend Tideland to the casual observer. And while the film is no masterpiece, and requires a certain amount of trust and patience, I can’t put a finger on its flaws. Perhaps because the world created is so strange, I did not once look away or glance at the clock, a claim that is difficult to make during for any two-hour entertainment. Although I am amazed that Gilliam continues to get funding for his films (this one apparently cost $12M and yet took in only $61K during its US run), I am glad that he, and his investors, continue to suffer for his art.
Here are this morning’s Oscar-nominated films, alphabetically. The nominees for foreign language film and documentary feature are compiled at the end of the list. (Short format nominees are listed in a 
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