22/09/2005

After an absence of years, 2005 marks definitively the comeback of Terry Gilliam, a former Monty Python and a filmmaker unafraid to create controversial works. Venice screened The Brothers Grimm; now it's time for the Basque audience to watch his most recent film Tideland [+see also:
trailer
film profile], a British-Canadian co-production competing for the Golden Shell (Concha de Oro) in the San Sebastian International Film Festival. Described as a combination of Alice in the Wonderland and Psycho, Gilliam had already explored the slim line between imagination and life ("my wife says I always do the same movie. I change nothing but the costumes…"), but he never seemed to go as far as he has now.

According to her mother, Jeliza-Rose was a perfect junkie baby, "nervous and hyperactive". When Jeliza-Rose's mother, herself a junkie too, dies from an overdose, her father puts the blame on the evil effects of methadone and decides to head on a journey, taking his offspring along. Jeliza-Rose soon begins to look after her father, which in this case includes preparing his heroine shots. This glimpse of the beginning of the film shows how unconventional Tideland is. Certainly not made for traditional minds or people with cardiac problems, the script, adapted by Gilliam himself and Tony Grisony from Mitch Cullin's novel, is a disturbing tale where the inner world of the lead character makes up a large part of the plot, to the point where fantasy and reality become hard to distinguish.

Gilliam totally defends his approach to the child in the story, justifying some of its hard scenes as part of the character's naivety. Like Alice in the Wonderland, Jeliza-Rose in the Tideland has her own views of a world which seems upside down. "I believe children are strong. They can reinvent the world and make it more bearable", said Gilliam during the press conference yesterday morning. When asked if he wasn't afraid that people might misunderstand the film, it was Jeremy Thomas, the producer, who took over, saying that some films that seem weird today, turn out to be classic films tomorrow. Wishful thinking.

Starring Jodelle Ferland, Janet McTeer, Brendan Fletcher and Jeff Bridges, Tideland was produced by Jeremy Thomas (Recorded Picture Company) and Gabriella Martinelli (Capri Films) in association with Telefim Canada, Foresight Film, Astral Media, The Harold Greenberg Fund and The Movie Network. London-based Hanway Filmshandles world sales.