First Look: Terry Gilliam's Tideland

By M&C News Aug 27, 2005, 13:52 GMT

Dell (Janet McTeer) and Dickens (Brendan Fletcher). (Credit: Francois Duhamel)

We have added stills and details from Terry Gilliam's forthcoming movie Tideland.

Described by Terry Gilliam as ‘Alice in Wonderland’ meets Psycho’, TIDELAND is a story that explores the resilience of a child and how she survives in bizarre circumstances.

Jeliza-Rose is a young child in a very unusual situation - both parents are junkies. When her mother dies, she embarks on a strange journey with her father, Noah, a rock’n roll musician well past his time.

The film drifts between reality and fantasy as Jeliza-Rose escapes the vast loneliness of her new home into the fantasy world that exists in her imagination. In this world fireflies have names, bog-men awaken at dusk, and squirrels talk. The heads of four dolls, long since separated from their bodies, keep her company: Mustique, Baby Blonde, Glitter Gal and Sateen Lips, until she meets Dickens, a mentally damaged young man with the mind of a ten-year-old. Dressed in a wet suit and speedo, he spends his days hiding out in junk heaped wig-wam turned submarine, waiting to catch the monster shark that inhabits the railway tracks. Then there’s his older sister Dell, a tall ghost-like figure dressed in black who hides behind a beekeeper’s mesh hood.

As optimistic as it is surreal, as humorous as it is suspenseful – Tideland is a celebration of the power of a child’s imagination.

Access media from Tideland.