3 gibbles out of 5

Director: Terry Gilliam

I’ll go ahead and say that Terry Gilliam hasn’t quite made his perfect movie yet.  Which is purely a judgment call, of course, but even my favorites of his oeuvre – 12 Monkeys, Baron von Munchausen – have moments of indulgence that sidetrack from the films.  Also, this isn’t such a bold claim: many well-known directors have yet, to me, to make their perfect movies.  Where Gilliam is unique amongst this crowd is in how directly he’s pursued a singular vision of the collision of fantasy and reality.  It’s not a look he brings to the movie (a la Tim Burton), but rather a concept that he either wraps around another vehicle or attempts to explain in his own way.  That he might not know exactly what he wants to say could be what makes his movies somewhat confused themselves, but  he seemed content with not having a clear point.

On one hand, Tideland is perhaps Gilliam’s most focused film in terms of theme and impact.  He seemed to know what he wanted to say with this one and it provides for some of his strongest and most recognizable characters.  On the other hand, indirectly, this focus makes it more wandering and, at times, boring, than a good portion of his work.  In a way, this makes it the polar opposite of Fear and Loathing – Thompson’s thoughts through Gilliam’s eyes, fantasy through insanity, a wandering mess of puppy poo that made its way into cult land thanks to Depp, and Gilliam’s rep at the time, and Thompson being a cult figure himself.  Tideland is equally unhinged in terms of pacing and characterization, but because Gilliam chose to funnel his voice through a small and innocent speaker – a young girl – and place her in the insanity of an ultra real world, it perverts things into a much better movie.  Alas, Gilliam’s rep isn’t what it was, our lead has an unfortunate Southern accent and isn’t Depp, and Tideland immediately offends the sensitive by having a little girl mixed up – in a dark comedy, for goodness sake – in drugs and death and sex.

Whoop.

Tideland is, again, about fantasy versus reality.  A young girl is being raised by two drug addict parents, getting the heroin ready for them and helping them inject it.  They OD; she’s left to discover more about the weird world all on her own.  Some of it might be in her head, some of it might be real.  Some of it’s frightening or exciting.  Most of it looks sparsely gorgeous.  Again, as an odd juxtaposition, one would think that Gilliam would careen off into visual indulgence with a child’s imagination running the show, but while you have your typical Gilliam visuals, they are much more compressed and thoughtful than the slightly silly hallucinations he normally paints on screen.

And yet only three gibbles.  Well, this might be a better film in terms of consistency – compositionally, emotionally, etc.  There are some surprising risks taken in the film, but if the critics would wipe the 1950s out of their eyes they would see what Gilliam speaks to in his intro on the DVD – that it’s through the eyes of a child.  It’s not exploitative, and certainly some of this stuff happens in real life.  Is it responsible to show it?  Well, it’s your responsibility to decide to watch it.  If you do, you might find that, despite these risks, it’s sort of a boring film.  Stripped of the confusion that drifts through his previous works, Tideland wanders.  Not aimlessly – it has an intention – but wanders like a child, self-assured and without concern.  It is an accomplishment for Gilliam.  With it out of the way, perhaps he’ll be able to make his perfect film that also requires an audience.

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