Every Labor Day weekend, attendees of the Telluride Film Festival hope to see prizewinners from May’s Cannes Film Festival.
The 36th Telluride Film Festival (through Monday) once again meets those expectations. Then it exceeds them with its own unique programming of some films old, some films new, some films borrowed and, admittedly, a few films blue. Or, as festival co-founder and co-director Tom Luddy teased earlier in the week, “As usual, most of the films are dark.”
Among the winners from the world’s most famous film festival to be shown at the world’s most cinema-loving festival: Palme d’Or winner “The White Ribbon,” by Michael Haneke; Grand Prix winner “A Prophet,” by Jacques Audiard; and Jury prize recipient “Fish Tank,” by Andrea Arnold.
Haneke’s and Audiard’s works were two of the films that set a brutal tone in Cannes. “The White Ribbon” takes place before World War I in a German village where a series of violent acts occurs.
In “A Prophet,” petty criminal Malik (Tahar Rahim) gets six years in a prison and winds up under the nasty tutelage of a Corsican crime boss. The film, with its ethnic tensions, provides a vigorous rebuff to criticism that French film is too ginger with its own domestic problems.
“There were at least five or six other films we’d have been happy to show,” said Luddy of the rich overlap.
Telluride has its distinct mix of revivals, tributes, archival treasures and fresh finds. In terms of breakout performance, festival goers should be on the lookout for Carey Mulligan, who stars as a high-school girl on the path to Oxford when she meets an older man in “An Education.”
“Red Riding,” the British made-for-TV trilogy based on David Peace’s novels, gets raves: “Anyone caught in the creeping infection of these films will recognize a tragic achievement that surpasses that of ‘The Godfather,’ ” renowned film critic David Thomson writes in the program notes.
Luddy added perspective: ” ‘The Godfather’ is one of David’s favorite films.” And that, folks, is how a “must-see” is made.
Each year, the festival invites a cinema diehard to program a few films. This year’s curator is Alexander Payne, director of “Sideways” and “Election.” Among his picks: Leo McCarey’s “Make Way for Tomorrow.” McCarey thought his 1937 drama about aging should have won the Oscar. (It went to “The Awful Truth,” also directed by McCarey.)
It was Payne who suggested Anouk Aimee for one of the tributes. The timing is elegant.
The festival’s Back Lot will screen Gianfranco Mingozzi’s documentary “We Who Lived ‘La Dolce Vita’ ” in celebration of the upcoming 50th anniversary of Federico Fellini’s masterpiece. Aimee, whom the maestro nicknamed “Anucchina,” fabulously played Maddalena.
Festival veterans aren’t above being awestruck. It’s just that celebrity has a different spin in the thin air. In this regard, Telluride is not Cannes. So during an interview a couple of years back, Alejandro González Iñárritu (“Babel”) stopped midsentence to point out Werner Herzog passing by.
Last year, Herzog’s Oscar-nominated documentary, “Encounters at the End of the World,” played. This year, the festival screens his drama “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.” It stars Nicolas Cage, and the actor and director will be on hand.
Attendees also have an opportunity to be in the company of Helen Mirren. The superlative performer arrives with “The Last Station,” in which she plays Tolstoy’s wife of four decades, Sofya.
There will be a tribute to director Margarethe von Trotta, a leading light of the New German Cinema that brought Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Volker Schlöndorff and Herzog to the art-house and college-film-society circuits.
Better, her latest, “Visions,” screens. The dynamic Barbara Sukowa plays 12th-century Christian mystic, composer and philosopher Hildegard von Bingen.
“Even though she was a nun, she was the first person in Western writings to minutely, and accurately, describe the female orgasm,” said Luddy. He adds with an appreciative laugh, “and that’s in the movie.”
Also receiving a tribute: Viggo Mortensen, the chisled, deeply intuitive performer who stars in the highly anticipated adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” (which will screen).
In addition to onstage interviews, there will be a clip reel that must include the shattering scene of Mortensen’s Russian-mob driver fighting for his life in a London steam room. This animalistic scene in “Eastern Promises” takes place with Mortensen in the raw.
For all its heft, Telluride has had its share of crowd-pleasers. Last year, “Slumdog Millionaire” dropped into one of the TBA — “to be announced” — slots that pepper the program. The year before, “Juno” arrived unannounced.
Festival goers have every right to expect that something happily unexpected will slip into the mix.
