The Telluride Film Festival is the hidden gem of film festivals.
Even some folks in the industry don’t know what it is even though it’s been going strong for 41 years and has honored people like Francis Ford Coppola, Peter O’Toole, Werner Herzog and Chuck Jones.
I love going to Telluride partly because of the program (which typically ends up containing lots of award winners), but also because the town itself is so beautiful. A tiny mining town in a box canyon in the San Juan Mountains? I’m there!
These are the five best new films that I saw at the festival this year.
BIRDMAN
Directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Written by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu/Nicolas Glacobone/Alexander Dinelaris/Armando Bo
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu has always been pretty hit or miss with me. I know that’s blasphemy in some circles, but there it is. I really liked one third of Amores Perros a lot. Another third was ok and the other third was nearly unwatchable. Babel was overwrought, but decent. 21 Grams was great, but I never need to watch it ever again. I haven’t seen Biutiful yet, so maybe that one would have changed my mind.
Birdman, though, caught me in just the right mood. The story of Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton) was affecting and heartfelt. Riggan is a washed up actor best known for a string of superhero movies in the 90s. He’s doing his best to bring his mojo back by adapting a Raymond Carver story for Broadway. When one of his co-stars is incapacitated just days before the preview, he lucks into getting Mike Shiner (Edward Norton) into the cast. Unfortunately, Mike is a terrible person who brings out the worst in Riggan.
Inarritu shoots the film in almost one continuous take, making for a pretty rough time on the actors. They all handle it amazingly well, some of them putting in their best performances in years…especially Keaton. It’s his first major starring role since 2005 and I think it’s long overdue. I’ve always loved Keaton and known that he could carry a movie like this. Now I’m vindicated!
Norton, of course, is amazing as the cocky, egotistical younger actor who really doesn’t have a lot of respect for…well…anyone, really. Not even enough to stay away from Riggan’s daughter (Emma Stone). The rest of the cast (including Naomi Watts and Zach Galifianakis) are almost as good, although they have less to do.
This is one of those movies that’s really hard to define. It’s a drama, but it’s funny. It’s realistic, but has its mystical side. It’s about the horrors of Hollywood and what it’s like to be an aging star and finds time to skewer critics who are just out to pull people down.
Birdman was probably my favorite film of the festival. I can’t wait for it to come out to see what other folks thought about it.
ROSEWATER
Written and directed by Jon Stewart
Based on a book by Mazair Bahari and Aimee Molloy
Jon Stewart isn’t known for his restraint. Oh, sure, he’s not one of those wild and crazy comedians who sticks arrows through his head or anything, but he can say some pretty outlandish stuff…even if it all does make perfect sense. Either way, he’s a political beast and everybody (for the most part) loves him and thinks he’s pretty hilarious.
So it’s only half surprising that his first film as a writer/director is NOT a comedy…but it is a political film. Rosewater is about the abduction and torture of Mazair Bahari (Gael Garcia Bernal), a journalist for Newsweek who happened to be from Iran. He went to Iran to cover the unrest and visit his family. Unfortunately, the government decided that he must be a spy for the US.
Stewart uses much restraint with the torture scenes (I don’t even remember any blood on the screen), but makes the mental anguish that Bahari felt palpable. It doesn’t hurt that Bernal is great in the role. Both men are able to balance the horror and the humor in the situation. (Bahari is actually a pretty funny guy, according to the movie.)
As with The Daily Show, Rosewater is bang up to date and brings out things that we, as US citizens, don’t ever think about. It’s a great film and I see a future for Stewart in political filmmaking if he chooses it.
WILD
Directed by Jean-Marc Vallee
Written by Nick Hornby
Based on a memoir by Cheryl Strayed
Cheryl Strayed (Reese Witherspoon) is broken into a million little pieces. She destroyed her marriage with drugs and cheating. Her beloved mother (Laura Dern) is dead. And Cheryl herself is completely directionless. What else is there to do besides hike over 1000 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail?
The Oprah award winning book is turned into a great film about perseverance in the face of harsh nature and sexism and rediscovering yourself through pushing to do something you’re just barely ready for.
Witherspoon is great as the true-life, belabored heroine who manages to keep her sense of humor in the face of everything that’s doled out to her. Granted, a lot of it is her own doing. She thew herself from a pretty high place, but managed to pick herself up and move along to her own pace. Is it as good of a film as Into The Wild? Maybe not, but I liked the lead character a lot more than I liked Alexander Supertramp. I could identify with her more and she wasn’t nearly as stupid as he was. (Although she didn’t check out any of her equipment before she left. And that backpack is ridiculous!)
The flashbacks of Cheryl’s former life were perfectly integrated into the story to give us the details we needed at the time we needed them. I also loved how her memories are triggered by things that don’t seem to correlate to the memories at all. She puts a whistle to her lips and immediately thinks about kissing a lover’s fingers. That’s how memory works. It’s not always logical.
Strayed’s story is unique, but universal. I think we’ve all been through something like this or know someone who has. Wild is a great movie that shows us what someone can do when they’re pushed far enough by themselves.
THE IMITATION GAME
Directed by Morten Tyldum
Written by Graham Moore
Based on a book by Andrew Hodges
Benedict Cumberbatch has made a career out of playing sociopathic geniuses. He’s very good at being awkward, self-centered, egocentric and completely oblivious to social graces. Alan Turing is right up his alley.
Turing, if you’re unfamiliar with the name, is basically the man who won World War II for the Allies. He and his small band of mathematical geniuses broke the Enigma code of the Nazis and turned the tide of the war in our favor. Without him and his “Turing machine,” the war could have been lost and we’d all be speaking German right now.
Unfortunately for Turing, his project had to be kept secret for decades. Also unfortunately for him, homosexuality was illegal in England the entire time he was alive. That means that he was ostracized by society and the government that he saved.
Just like Cheryl Strayed’s story, Turing’s origin story is told through flashbacks. We hardly even know that he’s gay until about half way through the movie. Through these flashbacks, we slowly see the young Turing (Alex Lawther) in school emotionally turn into the adult Turing played by Cumberbatch.
The Imitation Game tells an important story with grace and style. In this day and age, it’s especially important to see stories like this. With the constant fight for the rights of gay people everywhere, it’s good to see a story about a gay man who turned the tide of history.
TALES OF THE GRIM SLEEPER
Directed by Nick Broomfield
There was another movie that I may have liked a little bit more than this one (Mommy, directed by Xavier Dolan), but I think this one will have a harder time getting viewers, so here it is. It’s the only documentary that I saw during the festival and it shows us a truth that we all knew, but few of us have really seen.
The Grim Sleeper was a serial killer who was at work in South Central LA. For more than 20 years, he killed prostitutes and crack addicts. When Lonnie Franklin was arrested for the crimes, no one in the community could believe that such a well-liked and personable man could have been killing women. His best friends defended him to the filmmaker and the police…until they were each interviewed on their own. That’s when the strange facts started to pop up. Maybe Franklin DID hate women. Maybe he COULD have killed them.
The real controversy here, though, is that the LAPD knew what was going on, but never released any facts about the case until they had a man in custody. One of the cops was even heard to call Franklin a hero for getting these women off the streets!
That’s right. The true subject of this film isn’t the killer himself. It’s the fact that the LAPD really doesn’t care about South Central. If that area was wiped off the map, they would be ok with it. It’s a sad state of affairs that the residents (and most hip hop fans) have known for decades.
Nick Broomfield and his small crew are just as much characters in this film as the residents of South Central. They’re seen with their gear, reacting to the news that the residents give them. It’s hard for the British crew to fathom how little the police can care about the people they’re paid to protect. (Not that the Brits don’t have their own problems in this area.)
If you want to be disgusted with the way people are treated, see Tales Of The Grim Sleeper. Sadly, it will destroy a little bit of your faith in humanity.
