Terry Gilliam is never an easy choice for film watchers, because of his indubitable nature free of every restraint and full of the fullest Fantasy.
I'm not saying his movies are that complex, because actually in some cases you can easily understand the plot and its themes, even if surely they're not told in the usual way common moviegoers expect. But especially for this, his filmography deserves all the merits and views you can give, and I advice you to start with his most wonderful Classics, like BRAZIL, 12 MONKEYS or THE FISHER KING, before discovering this one in particular.
Here, though, we have Gilliam literally untied from any limit like few other times, so that he can give us back a story full of every single necessary element, a story where pain and fantasy are at their fullest.
I was actually surprised to read that this is based on a Novel, but even without knowing it I cannot deny it is a work made especially for Gilliam's hands, whether it's original or not.
I had some difficulties myself in following it at the beginning, despite understanding soon what was going on, but proceeding I couldn't help but feel totally amazed by the evergreen masterfulness of this true Storyteller, one of the few left in Cinema.
We could say this is the darkest version of his constant theme, the paradoxical and yet always relevant connection between Reality and Fantasy, always told in his other titles, in a more colorful and comedic way or even in a more serious and tragic way, but here it seems like he wants to focus even more on the grim nature of the world and how it affects the fantasy. And even in that, we can find moment of bittersweet love, maybe influenced by the harshest reality, but nevertheless a symbol of the deepest humanity.
And to better show it he couldn't find a better protagonist, young Jodelle Ferland is perfect in showing the peculiarity of a child left to herself, wonderful in coloring the world around her with her fantasies, and so dealing with the worst experiences in her life, which Gilliam slams us in the face with from the very beginning.
What we discover with her is a dark, ambivalent and disturbing piece that truly shows the real power of surreality and reality held in an incredible grip with which we can escape or face everything.
I'm not saying his movies are that complex, because actually in some cases you can easily understand the plot and its themes, even if surely they're not told in the usual way common moviegoers expect. But especially for this, his filmography deserves all the merits and views you can give, and I advice you to start with his most wonderful Classics, like BRAZIL, 12 MONKEYS or THE FISHER KING, before discovering this one in particular.
Here, though, we have Gilliam literally untied from any limit like few other times, so that he can give us back a story full of every single necessary element, a story where pain and fantasy are at their fullest.
I was actually surprised to read that this is based on a Novel, but even without knowing it I cannot deny it is a work made especially for Gilliam's hands, whether it's original or not.
I had some difficulties myself in following it at the beginning, despite understanding soon what was going on, but proceeding I couldn't help but feel totally amazed by the evergreen masterfulness of this true Storyteller, one of the few left in Cinema.
We could say this is the darkest version of his constant theme, the paradoxical and yet always relevant connection between Reality and Fantasy, always told in his other titles, in a more colorful and comedic way or even in a more serious and tragic way, but here it seems like he wants to focus even more on the grim nature of the world and how it affects the fantasy. And even in that, we can find moment of bittersweet love, maybe influenced by the harshest reality, but nevertheless a symbol of the deepest humanity.
And to better show it he couldn't find a better protagonist, young Jodelle Ferland is perfect in showing the peculiarity of a child left to herself, wonderful in coloring the world around her with her fantasies, and so dealing with the worst experiences in her life, which Gilliam slams us in the face with from the very beginning.
What we discover with her is a dark, ambivalent and disturbing piece that truly shows the real power of surreality and reality held in an incredible grip with which we can escape or face everything.