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September 13, 2006

Hot House 5 from 9,000 ft (The Telluride Film Festival)

David Wilson

David Wilson rolls with a dangerous mix of charm and intelligence. He organizes the True/False Film Festival. Fortunate for us, he played our man in the field.
 

		Day one. Staff screening. It's Babel, a film that I know nothing about. This is the best part of Telluride. The films are secret until the day the fest starts, and they're pretty much all world premieres. What this means for me as a viewer is that I have no baggage, no reviews, nothing. I watch a movie with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett and it makes me cry and gasp and, here I get maudlin, believe in the transformative power of movies.
		Lightning strikes again with Severance. If you had told me that Telluride, bastion of cinematic purity, would show a comedic slasher film, I just might have done a genuine spit-take. But this film is so good. More Aliens than Alien, it's also laugh-out-loud funny.
		Yes, Telluride has the hits, and that's what most of the folks who pay $600-$3500 for their passes want to see. But those hits will all be in movie theaters in a matter of months. What makes this fest great (and makes me travel 1,000 miles to volunteer for them) is bringing films like Playtime back into the public consciousness, and in a gorgeous 70mm print no less. The film, by Jacques Tati, is a hyper-modernist slapstick comedy - Keaton via Beckett maybe. Mostly, it's just SO good.
		Asger Leth, son of Jurgen Leth, whom we all know from the 5 Obstructions, made a doc about Haiti. It's called Ghosts of Cite Soleil and it's fantastic. Telluride doesn't really "believe" in parties, so they saved up all their party mojo for Toronto, where Wyclef Jean played a hour of party bangers, and I got to stand next to Ron fucking Perlman, who was wearing some sort of ECKO Wolverine shirt or something.
		Telluride is the most beautiful place I've ever been. It's expensive and ridiculous and all that stuff, but it's still just ridiculously gorgeous.

   

Posted by Rock Heals at September 13, 2006 12:00 AM