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Tideland is a visual treat, no great surprise considering the director, but the humor is far more black than anything Terry Gilliam has done before.
If you can't stand the thought of watching a child prepare her parents' smack or cuddle up with her father's bloated, rotting corpse, then this is not the film for you. The situations are disturbing enough for adults, but when you get a child involved it feels borderline exploitative. Though it never *really* crosses the line, there's a definite feeling of bleak suspense running throughout the film that at any minute things will stop being so fantastical and reality will come crashing down upon little Jeliza-Rose, and it really undercuts the absurd humor in many of the scenes.
It makes for an interesting comparison with Gilliam's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. In that film, the protagonist also found himself in countless deeply disturbing situations (for instance, a violent acid-head bathing in a pool of his own filth begging the protagonist to help him commit suicide), but the movie's humor was always elevated by them, probably due to the cavalier attitude of the narration and the near slapstick performances of the actors.
It's hard for me to cast judgment on whether Tideland is a good or bad film because I'm still not sure on what terms I'm supposed to judge it. It was too absurd to be taken seriously and too dark to be really funny. All I can say for certain is that it was definitely worth watching, and worth recommending for those with a strong stomach.
I can also say without hesitation that the 2-disc DVD release is a must-have for Gilliam fans due to the enormous amount of commentary available. The first disc is the film and a wonderful commentary track with Gilliam and screenwriter Tony Grisoni. The second disc has a 45 minute documentary about the filming of Tideland called "Getting Gilliam." The documentary itself is pretty ho-hum if you've seen The Hamster Factor (included on the 12 Monkeys DVD) or Man of La Mancha, but it includes a fun commentary track with Gilliam and the director of the documentary, Vincenzo Natali. Also included on disc 2 are a small selection of deleted scenes with commentary by Gilliam, an interview with Gilliam, an interview with the producer of the film, and a demonstration of some of the green screening used in the film with commentary by Gilliam.
7/10
