2007 Telluride Film Festival Wrap-Up

Telluride, Colo. - New films from Sean Penn and Julian Schnabel earned high marks at the 2007 Telluride Film Festival during the Labor Day weekend, while the absence of a “wow” movie and lengthy lines dampened some moviegoers spirits.

Last year’s breakout film was the German spy drama “The Lives of Others,” which rode its Telluride buzz all the way to the Toronto International Film Festival and went on to win the Oscar for best foreign language film.

Crowd pleasers at this year’s 34th annual festival, which finished up on Labor Day after screening about 40 features over a four day period, included Penn’s “Into the Wild,” Schnabel’s “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” and Austrian filmmaker Stefan Ruzowitzky’s “The Counterfeiters” - all fact-based sagas of survival.

Other favorites included Cristian Mungiu’s “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” Israeli filmmaker Eran Koliri’s “The Band’s Visit,” and the animated movie “Persepolis,” based on the coming-of-age graphic novel of the same name set in Iran under the rule of Ayatollah Khomenei.

Attendees were decidedly split on “I’m Not There,” Todd Haynes’ original take on the life and times of singer/songwriter Bob Dylan. Whether they responded to Haynes’ artistic vision or not, they were all in agreement when it came to Cate Blanchett’s remarkable portrayal of the picture’s main man.

Reactions were also mixed for “Margot at the Wedding,” the latest dysfunctional family tragicomedy from “The Squid and the Whale” filmmaker Noah Baumbach. But again, there was little dispute about the performances of leads Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh as a pair of estranged sisters.

This year’s selection also included Brian De Palma’s shocking Iraq War drama “Redacted”; Tamara Jenkins’ “The Savages,” starring Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman; and “Juno,” Jason Reitman’s follow-up to his well-received political satire “Thank You for Smoking,” with the latter two titles receiving the strongest reactions. All three films will also be screened at the Toronto Film festival, which begins on Thursday.

Longtime Telluride festival-goers found themselves having to show up earlier than ever for an increasing number of the movie screenings. Pass-holders complained of having to line up more than an hour in advance outside venues with no guarantee of even getting in.

Once inside the theaters, it wasn’t unusual to spot the likes of Laura Linney, Sean Penn and wife Robin Wright Penn, Marcia Gay Harden, and acclaimed theater director Peter Sellars taking in as many films as their schedules allowed.