Tideland

Like my other favorite Cría Cuervos, here’s another film dealing with innocence, death, and escapism from harsh realities, also starring a young girl. I mention this film and Cría first because it is so rare to find films about childhood that don’t Spielberg-ify them into idyllic stories of politically correct Haley Joel Osmond caricatures being bullied and then winning against all odds due to either the power of their imagination, a talking dog, or a school that teaches witchcraft. Terry Gilliam’s Tideland is his (and novelist Mitch Cullin’s) eschatological version of Alice in Wonderland, but no magic mushrooms are needed in this story — the reality of protagonist Jeliza-Rose is just as surreal and grotesque as her daydreams and it is often hard to determine which is which. Critics hated this film, largely because it portrays childhood and innocence not in the standard platonic sense, but as something that is by definition morally ambivalent, equally susceptible to good and ill, something that many in the grown-up world chose not to remember.