The Surreal Life

This class is consuming my life. All I do is watch movies, but now it's all very specific to a very different subgenre. My brain is melting, my brain is melting!

Tonight is class #2 out of 4, so I'm halfway there. I still have a long way to go. I'm mapping out my last two classes. The film that I keep coming back to over and over again is Terry Gilliam's Tideland. I know my friends at Punchbuggy Blues and ekroblog had quite the experience getting to see a screening of Tideland with Gilliam present (you lucky #!$^$#*&$!!!!!, I'm so jealous!). Critical reactions to Tideland were mixed, to say the very least. It seems that reviews were either glowing or completely damning. Visit Rotten Tomatoes where it received a 28% rating and reviews that range from "horrendous and terrible" to "I hated this film" to "drearily awful".

I loved it. Loved it.

Now, upon first viewing I was left scratching my head and wondering if I even liked it at all. Now over a year later and after watching it a second time, I love it. It's the kind of film that could be looked kindly upon as a cult classic in a decade or so, but it's never going to be widely loved. It's rated R for "bizarre and disturbing content, including drug use, sexuality, and gruesome situations - all involving a child, and for some language." There's also all kinds of weirdness involving taxidermy and a mentally challenged man in an old scuba diving uniform. It's brilliant. The plot goes something like this:

Jeliza-Rose is about 10 years old and her parents are junkies. When mom O.D.'s in bed, she and dad flee to his childhood home on the prairie. Dad promptly O.D.'s in a chair. Jeliza-Rose is left to her own devices in a dilapidated house with no one but her Barbie doll heads to talk to. Then she meets her neighbors, Dell and Dickens. Dell wears all black, has one good eye and excels at the art of taxidermy. Dell's brother Dickens is mentally challenged and he and Jeliza-Rose become fast friends.

It's a deeply strange and unsettling film. It's challenging and funny and unique, and it's one of Gilliam's finest films. After my friend had told me about the film screening, I immediately ordered the novel by Mitch Cullen. After having read the book prior to seeing Gilliam's version, I didn't find the film too shocking or insane. In fact, it's a rather faithful and loving adaptation that actually tones down some of the more sexual aspects of the novel.

I'm really anxious to see the film again. It's stuck in my head and burned into my skull. Perhaps I love movies that generate such strong and powerful reactions. However, if you rent the DVD then skip Gilliam's introduction, it's really douchey. Oh, and if you are delicate in constitution and don't like seeing children in uncomfortable situations or have a weak stomach, then Tideland isn't for you. Heeeheheeeee!