Tideland - 5

The first moments of this film are director Terry Gilliam (12 Monkeys, Time Bandits, The Brothers Grimm, Brazil, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) explaining how there will be a myriad of responses to this (faithful?- I haven't read it) but weird adaptation of the book by Mitch Cullin. Some will like it (mostly people who are Gilliam fans already), some will hate it (those that are in need of a more simplistic narrative structure), and those that don't know what to say. While I am part of the first two groups, I guess that actually makes me have the third response. I think the film is interesting and excites the imagination, but it leaves most of the work of responding up to you. Plenty of valid reasons can be given for all the possible responses. I would explain the film as an expressionist film about a young girl (Jodelle Ferland, who as an actress is well beyond her years) whose parents are heroine addicts, and who moves to a vacant house in the middle of a large wheat field. She eventually meets up with the neighbors a strange older women blinded eye and her son, an epileptic with a large scar on his head from brain surgery (Yeah, its that normal that you followed all of that without going: "What the....?"). The crowd is small for this film, but seeing the film will only confirm whether you think the medium of film might be an art form, or just a entertainment-money-machine.