Over the Labor
Day weekend, dedicated cinephiles, renowned storytellers and world famous stars
came together for the 43rd time in the laid-back streets of
Telluride, surrounded by the picturesque views of The Rockies. The small but typically
rich program offered many delicacies to indulge in: some—like Maren Ade’s “Toni
Erdmann” and Pablo Larraín’s “Neruda”—hailing from Cannes, some—like Kenneth
Lonergan’s “Manchester by the Sea” and Otto Bell’s “The Eagle Huntress”—rekindling
their Sundance glory, and others world premiering (such as Barry Jenkins’
“Moonlight”). There were also films like Damien Chazelle’s “La La Land,” which reinforced their
euphoric Venice reception of just a few days prior, after completing a most
impossible physical journey from The Lido to the mountains of Colorado.
It’s tricky and
often unfair to stuff the diverse and assorted programming of a film festival
inside a coincidental “trends” wrapper, although common denominators eventually
and inevitably reveal themselves slowly throughout the course of each. There
are multiple ways to dissect the common ground within this year’s Telluride line
up, and how one reads its overarching themes will naturally depend on what one
manages to see over the course of its cruelly short duration of three-plus days. But
what jumped out at me after seeing 14 of the 28 feature length films in the
festival’s main program (I admit, I saw a pair among them in advance) was the strength
and singularity of female-driven stories.
True, the
festival didn’t fare too well for female directors: less than 25% of the main program
was directed/co-directed by women. And also true, one of festival’s
open-to-public panels titled “How do the films of 2016 redefine the American
Hero?” uncomfortably featured four white males: Bryan Cranston, Tom Hanks,
Miles Teller and Aaron Eckhart, all of whom starred in at least one film in the
festival’s program. It was a jarring fact firmly and uncomfortably acknowledged
by moderator/Columbia professor Annette Insdorf (“We really tried,” she said,
briefly noting the understandable logistical difficulties) and satirically/effectively
recognized by Hanks in the intro. But amid the male heroes of “Sully,” “Manchester by the Sea” and “Bleed for This” and several names that will likely
pop-up in the awards season’s upcoming Best Actor race, women left a
deep, irrefutable and unforgettable mark.
It all started
on the festival’s first day with “La La
Land”’s Emma Stone, who stars in Damien Chazelle’s dizzyingly lovely,
boisterous musical as Mia, a starlet and playwright with big dreams. While her
co-star Ryan Gosling, in the role of a purist jazz musician with aspirations
and plans of his own, equally inhabits this joyous yet heartbreaking story of
young lovers with incompatible ambitions, it is Stone’s Mia that
eventually steals the show and occupied the chatter in the mountains. Mia,
despite being the heroine of a love story, is far from a mere throwaway love
interest. She is a well-rounded character, allowed joys, sorrows,
failures and triumphs of her own. And it is mostly her perspective in the
film’s final moments that elevates “La La Land” to renewed emotional heights. Moreover,
through Mia’s various acting auditions—some comedic, some soul-crushing—Stone is notably provided with a lush opportunity to display her acting range.
Another distinguished
female character—in fact, perhaps Telluride’s most noteworthy—was Dr. Louise
Banks of Denis Villeneuve’s “Arrival,”
a linguistic expert tasked to decipher the language of Earth-visiting aliens, played
by Amy Adams with deep emotional strength and commitment. While she is joined
by Jeremy Renner playing Ian Donnelly, a scientist paired up with her in the
governmental mission of alien communication, it is Adams’ Dr. Banks that
drives the narrative forward and comes out of “Arrival” as the film’s sole
lead. Unapologetically motivated by her professional zeal and rationality, but
forever marked by a parental trauma (the details of which “Arrival” erupts
early on, only to enrich its layers later), Dr. Banks joins the ranks of
Ellen Ripley (“Alien”), Ryan Stone (“Gravity”) and Eleanor Arroway (“Contact”)
as an unforgettable and multifaceted female sci-fi hero.
In Benedict
Andrews’ “Una,” the exquisite Rooney
Mara sharply plays the title character, a sexual abuse survivor, with
conviction and a piercing bitterness. With writer David Harrower adapting from his own stage play “Blackbird,” “Una” is a complex, unflinching look at the
wounds carried by female victims of sexual abuse and a film that stays within
the emotional world of the deeply-wounded throughout. We learn the
details of Una’s story through flashbacks, when she decides to visit her abuser
(who manipulated and took advantage of her when she was just a young teenager)
at work and confront him with harrowing memories of the past. The most
remarkable aspect of “Una” is its dedication towards fully and completely hearing
out an abuse victim, and the distressing but timely questions around the nature
of love and sexual consent it raises. This is a film that understands and
laments the often ignored, complex psychological damages sexual abuse victims
carry within. It makes you feel the excruciating pain.
In Aisling
Walsh’s heartwarming gem “Maudie”
and Mia Hansen-Løve’s intellectually nourishing “Things to Come,” two of the female-directed films in this year’s
line-up, we follow two distinct women who painstakingly rise above their life
obstacles and challenging marriages. This is naturally a lot easier to
accomplish for Nathalie Chazeaux of “Things to Come,” a French college
professor and privileged intellectual (gracefully played by Isabelle Huppert)
with a taxing mother and a quietly crumbling marriage. For the titular
character Maudie (Sally Hawkins, terrific in an emotionally and physically
challenging role), an arthritic woman from Nova Scotia with limited prospects, it’s undoubtedly a few notches tougher. But watching her stand tall against her
initially abusive husband (played by Ethan Hawke) and discover her blooming
talent as an idiosyncratic artist is all the more rewarding and uplifting in
this tear-jerking true story.
Among the titles
I’m still yet to see, Maren Ade’s Toronto and New York Film Festival-bound
“Toni Erdmann” continued to make waves for writer/director Ade and Sandra
Hüller, in the role of a woman tantalized by the surprise visit of her
estranged father. In another father/daughter story that is often referred to as
a “story of female empowerment,” Otto Bell’s documentary “The Eagle Huntress” exuberantly
took over Telluride with Aisholpan’s tale; a 13-year-old Mongolian girl that
dares to overturn a long-standing male tradition and become the first female
eagle hunter in 12 generations.
Surely, film
festivals across the board can make more of an intensified, conscious effort to
program their selections with an eye toward gender balance. Stories of/by women
of color are especially notable absentees year after year. But for the careful
observer, the festival circuit of this year won’t be solely marked by men or
define the future of male heroism in cinema. Dig through the season’s offerings
and you will agree.
