Telluride Film Fest #41: We Lava-ed You

02 Sep Telluride Film Fest #41: We Lava-ed You

It’s a bird.

It’s a plane – not.

It’s “Birdman,” a winged version of Superman and all the other hollow comic book super heroes at the center of pow!, wow!, bang, snap, crackle and pop orgies, the “toxic crap” (according to “Birdman’s” fictive New York Times critic) at the center of so many mind-numbing Hollywood blockbusters.

But “Birdman,” the movie is anything but old-hat or formulaic. It is director Alejandro Inarritu’s fifth film and first true masterpiece. The comedic melodrama is also one of the best and brightest movies of the 41st annual Telluride Film Festival, a world-renowned, much-loved paen to what Orson Welles once described as “ribbons of dreams.”

“Birdman” somewhat paradoxically wins hearts and minds – and likely a suitcase full of Golden Statues for the director, star Michael Keaton, the extraordinary ensemble cast, and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki of “Gravity” fame, who shoots the film in a simulated long take –  and it wins them the old-fashioned way, with a story about a very complicated character and his ongoing struggle with self-esteem, family, money and aging – oh, and a predatory feathery doppelgänger. Sound familiar? It should. Minus the hero’s shadow side in the form of a bird man, the film is not just Riggan Thomson’s story (and the role of a lifetime for Keaton). Look in the mirror – or up at the sky – Boomers: the dying star flaming across the screen as the picture begins could be an apt metaphor for a generation.

Equal parts strange and wonderful, “Birdman” is an electrifying showbiz satire in which Inarritu manages to take no prisoners and finds the Holy Grail of his medium: that elusive sweet spot where intelligent storytelling meets superior (and in this case, groundbreaking) filmmaking and escapist entertainment. It is the “spot” that defines what the Telluride Film Festival is all about: the art, not the business of filmmaking.

Riggan bases his salvation, the journey from mere, over-the-hill celebrity to a real and relevant Broadway actor, on a Raymond Carver short story: “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.”

Well, “Birdman” is what we talk about when we talk about loving films.

And “Birdman” is one of the many movies on the 2014 Festival program based on the theme of war. Yes war. Because in a case of art imitating life, the picture on the big screen often reflects the zeitgeist and the headlines, which this year have been as dark as pitch.

And that may explain the success of the buzziest film of the festival, “Wild Tales,” the totally irreverent Argentine-Spanish dark comedy, which unpacks six narratives based on the theme of getting even.

A person can dream.

Subplots are variations on the theme of Joseph Campbell’s “hero’s journey,” a pattern of narrative that describes the adventures of an archetype, the Hero, who goes out into the world to make a difference. And sometimes does.

Several of the best films in a festival of “bests” are about “war” writ small – as in the life-and death struggle against the demons within. Main characters tend to go through the painful process of disillusionment and keep on keeping on with grit and grace – or they are defeated by their shadow side and the times.

Cheryl Strayed, the author of the bestseller “Wild,” is a prime example of the latter, a powerful tale of loss, near self-destruction and catharsis through an interior journey that unfolds over a harrowing 1100-mile hike along the Pacific Crest Trail in too tight boots. Heart-breaking, heart-warming and humorous, the film version is adapted for the screen by writer Nick Hornby, who uses flashbacks to fill in the reasons why. It is directed by Jean-Marc Vallee (“Dallas Buyer’s Club’). The movie stars Reese Witherspoon in a strong central performance, a transcendent Laura Dern as Strayed’s mother, and a backpack.

“The Imitation Game,”  a film that found its way to the top of everyone’s must-see list, straddles both ideas about war: it is about man fighting his devils and also the ALL CAPS horror of WWII.

In the “Imitation Game,” Benedict Cumberbatch stars as Alan Turing, the genius British quant jock, logician, cryptologist and pioneer in the field of artificial intelligence, who, by cracking the uncrackable Germain Enigma Code with a machine built by the team he leads, helps the Allies win WWII and saves an estimated 14 million lives – except for his own.

Alan Turing was a double outsider: almost certainly autistic and definitely gay in the day  when homosexuality– “the love that dares not speak its name” – was flat out illegal. Heard on a line: the man wound up offing himself by putting cyanide into an apple and taking a bite. A familiar image? Urban legend has it that Turing’s suicide was the inspiration for Apple’s logo, Steven Jobs’ tribute to the man who was a forefather of modern-day computers. But people who should know say “it ain’t so.” In fact, knowledgeable sources believe Turing may have been murdered by British security forces out of fear that, as a homosexual, he represented a security threat. And apparently the apple was never tested for cyanide. Regardless, both fables are nods to the Borgias.

More conventional than “Birdman, but no less affecting and effective, “The Imitation Game” is at once an intimate psychological study of genius and a penetrating look at the Second World War. Another Oscar nod for sure, this one for director Morten Tyldum and Cumberbatch.

Who knows how JMW Turner would have turned out had he followed in his father’s footsteps and become a barber instead of one of the greatest artists of all time, a singular painter of light, a father of Impressionism and modern abstraction.

Turner was irascible and so anti-social he communicated mostly in growls, grunts and belches, yet he was a highly respected member of the stolid Royal Academy of Arts. The son of a father he adored and a mother who was purportedly as mad as a hatter, he was both generous (his art) and stingy (emotionally, especially to the mother of his children) to a fault. Clearly the artist was rescued from his devils by the will to form – and a charming lady with whom he lived out the last years of his life under the radar.

In “Mr. Turner,” yes another surefire Oscar play, Mike Leigh, now in the twilight of his career, gives us a dazzling biopic that could well be his directorial masterpiece. The sensuous film is in large part defined by the remarkable performance of character actor Timothy Spall as the porcine Holy Cockney.

Just as “Two Days, One Night,” the Dardenne brothers’ undecorated, wholly honest portrait of the harsh economic and social realities of Belgian life among the bottom 99 percent, rests on the lovely shoulders of the luminous Marion Cotillard. This is not the glamorous movie star of “The Artist.” Wearing no make-up and thrift store clothes, the actress gives a career-defining performance as a character who journeys from suicidal to hopeful, without an ounce of treacle.

Some of the early reviews were equivocal, but Jon Stewart, along with his star, Gael Garcia Benal, and Maziar Bahari received a standing ovation for his first big movie, “Rosewater” at a packed screening at the Chuck Jones. Stewart’s freshman film is based on the best-selling memoir by Bahari, the Iranian born journalist (for Newsweek) unjustly imprisoned and tortured for 118 days as a CIA-Zionist spy.

And despite the director – or because of his profound intelligence and humanizing vision–the film is no joke. Bahari’s survival is a personal triumph of will that, through this powerfully acted political drama, is meant to raise awareness and offer hope to the hundreds? of other journalists and civilians incarcerated all over the world.

Unless they hail from New Jersey.

But seriously, this is no laughing matter.

At an afternoon seminar, Stewart explained: “The reality and banality of torture is ubiquitous.”

Another popular film that focuses on the ongoing struggles in the MidEast is Eran Riklis’ “Dancing Arabs,” based on autobiographical novels by Arab-Israeli Sayed Kashua. The story charts the journey of a gifted young Arab boy whose greatest accomplishment turns out to be his ability to disappear into a landscape of conflict.

Could there be a more poignant plea for peaceful coexistence?

Which brings us to Volker Schlondorff’s terrifically acted piece of filmed theatre,“Diplomacy,” another of Film Fest’s big small movies.

“Diplomacy” is dedicated to the 2014 tributee’s friend, former Telluride local, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke. The story is set in Paris just before Allied forces reach the city, which Hitler has instructed his general to torch. We witness a clever Swedish consul negotiating with a hard-headed Teuton. Appeals to human decency, the futility of war, plus an underhanded scheme and a glass of fine Chardonnay save the day – and the City of Lights.

The film raises the question for layman and diplomats alike: Do the ends justify the means? Is all really fair in love and war?

And in general, nearly every film, good or bad, commercial or independent, large or small, talking or silent, on the festival program or not, asks another question: What matters?

What matters for sure is the work of the brilliant social commentator, Brazilian photo-journalist Sebastiao Salgado, whose profound empathy and insights into the human condition – the good, the bad, the ugly –  captured in hauntingly complex, monumental images are now celebrated in “The Salt of the Earth.” The stunning documentary by Wim Wenders and Salgado’s son Juliano who bill themselves as “The Odd Couple,” is just one of a number of stand-out documentaries in the program, including “The Look of Silence,” which we sadly missed, but hope to catch in the After the Fest Fest. In the mix: Salgado’s moving journey from hope to despair ( from the cumulative effects of dealing with extended tragedies, mostly in Africa) back to hope, partly the result of his family’s Instituto Terra, which is returning devastated land surrounding their former cattle ranch to its natural state of subtropical forest.

The project represents a return to Eden.

“Salt of the Earth” elicits hope one tree at time and that alone deserves applause.

The brouhaha about Toronto?

Turned out to be a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.

(For the record, my title pays homage to the beautiful animated short, “Lava,” the crowd-pleaser that accompanied “Wild.”)