Tideland (film)
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Tideland (2005) is a film co-written and directed by Terry Gilliam, an adaptation of Mitch Cullin's novel Tideland. The movie was shot in Regina, Saskatchewan in the fall and winter of 2004. The world premier was at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival, where the film was met with a mystified, outraged, and split reaction from both viewers and critics. After little interest from U.S. distributors, ThinkFilm picked the film up for a U.S. release date in October 2006.
Film festivals
After the usual amount of mixed reviews that accompany any new Terry Gilliam film, Tideland was awarded the Fipresci Prize at Spain's 2005 San Sebastian Festival, selected by an international jury of critics that, in their award statement, said: "Our jury focused on the international competition and found Terry Gilliam's Tideland to be the best film of the selection--a decision which provoked controversial reactions." The jury consisted of Andrei Plakhov, Russia, President (Commersant-Daily), Julio Feo Zarandieta, France (Radio France Internationale), Wolfgang Martin Hamdorf, Germany (filmdienst), Massimo Causo, Italy (Corriere Del Giorno), Sergi Sanchez, Spain (La Razon).Story overview
Tideland is a macabre and darkly surreal novel about an abandoned young girl (Jeliza-Rose), her life in rural Texas, and her imaginative fantasy life that often involves conversations with the dismembered heads of Barbie dolls. Some have favourablely compared the book to earlier Southern Gothic American literature such as To Kill a Mockingbird and A Rose for Emily, while others, including Terry Gilliam and film producer Jeremy Thomas, have called the book a modern hybrid of Psycho and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.Written by American author Mitch Cullin, the book was first published in the United States in 2000. A subsequent United Kingdom paperback edition followed in 2003, and other editions were also published in The Netherlands and Japan. In 1999, Cullin sent a pre-publication galley to Gilliam for a cover blurb, but Gilliam so liked what he read that he optioned the book with an eye to direct. The film version was produced by Recorded Pictures, and was directed by Gilliam and shot in Canada in 2004. In 2003, the U.K. edition of Tideland was published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, with Gilliam's infamously funny blurb on the cover: "F*cking wonderful!".
Film plot
Jeliza-Rose is a girl, about 10 years old, who lives with her drug-addicted parents. When her mother dies from an overdose, her father Noah (Jeff Bridges) is about to set fire to the corpse inside the apartment, but the girl prevents it by explaining that this may set the whole apartment block on fire. The two move to a remote other house. The girl assists Noah in taking drugs. She is accustomed to the fact that Noah is unconscious for some time after taking a dose.One day Noah dies too. The girl is somewhat uncomfortable with (but not too much alarmed by) the fact that Noah does not wake up, and starts to smell.
She befriends mentally challenged Dickens (Brendan Fletcher). His sister Dell (Janet McTeer) conserves Noah's body, which they keep in the house.
Dickens keeps dynamite, and uses it one day to cause a train crash on the nearby railway. A surviving woman takes care of Jeliza-Rose.
Movie cast overview
- Jodelle Ferland as Jeliza-Rose
- Brendan Fletcher as Dickens
- Jeff Bridges as Noah
- Jennifer Tilly as Queen Gunhilda
- Janet McTeer as Dell
- Sally Crooks as Dell's Mother
External links
- [Official movie website for Terry Gilliam's adaptation of Tideland]
- [Dreams (Terry Gilliam fanzine): Tideland]
- [Official movie website for Terry Gilliam's adaptation of Tideland]
- [Fipresci, the international federation of film critics]
- [Official website for The San Sebastian Festival]
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