Review of Tideland (2005) by Ville P — 16 Feb 2009

Terry Gilliam makes films that are so thick in content because, I think, he does not want to waste a second of your time. This time he has achieved both that as well as a fluid, human expedition into our deepest hidden selves. You will be most enticed by this film if you are bored by all but horror. You may like it even if you do not like only horror.

Maybe this movie is about the innocence of the perspective of a child. Certainly one can take that from it. Poor cute little Jelizah Rose (Jodelle Ferland) carries on a most precarious existence without guilt, allowing us to rationalize her actions with our hindsight as adults. She is inundated with the harshest situations: your immediate response is to walk toward the screen and pull her out of all this s*%t. You will feel that way throughout her story. Yet she survives as herself, not swayed from her vivid imaginations of true love and adventure by even the dankest realities, like her decaying father.

Jelizah-Rose, to her (she does not know it) putrefying father in the easy-chair: Poo in the yard, cuz thats where ya do it!

I want to tell you to see this film, but I can not describe its beauty. See this film.

Poor little Jelizah Rose has a meaningful relationship with a lobotomized victim of incest. He impresses her, of course, since he is captain of his own submarine. It does not matter to her that this submarine is the overturned wreckage of the schoolbus he drove over the train tracks, and the death of the passengers is lost on her awareness. It is most certainly foremost for the captain, as he is trying to impress his new friend, and knows he is with her in the evidence of his greatest error.

Maybe this film is about the short-sightedness of love.

Maybe it is about the value of the innocent, and the fact that we are motivated to protect them because they remind us of ourselves.

Maybe you can tell me why this movie makes me tear-up more than any other, including [I]12 Monkeys[/I].

Janet McTeer is sexy as a Necromancer. Jodelle Ferland is one of those surprisingly really-good young actors. Wow, she delivers. Jeff Bridges is, well, um, do I really need to say? Jeff sells anything he wants. Jeff Bridges plays a dead former rock star putrefying in the prairies like you wouldnât believeâ¦unless you know Jeff Bridges.

Maybe one of the other sub-plots is going to be the one you think is most moving. Let me know.