More than any other festival, Telluride is known for its revivals. After all, this is a film that built its international reputation on one of the greatest moments in film restoration and exhibition ever: an outdoor screening of Abel Gance’s Napoleon, featuring for the first time since its original release a perfectly synchronized three-screen exhibition of the final reel.

Telluride’s revivals this year ranged from the super-obscure (The Way You Wanted Me, a WW2-era Finnish melodrama) to the ultra-famous (Help!, newly restored). The three films I saw fall somewhere in between, and all were strong examples of why Telluride is such an indispensible part of global film culture:

Bhumika (1976, Shyam Benegal)

Shown as part of a mini-retrospective for festival tributee Benegal, this engaging, starkly kaleidoscopic vision of the life of a Bollywood actress is a daringly forthright argument for women’s lib in pre-movement India. Contrasting faked archival images from the actress’s films with Ray-like black-and-white sequences, flashy high-key Bollywood-inspired touches, and a rich, textured color palette as the film settles into its main narrative, Benegal creates a startling approach to artistic biography and the duality of the performer that probably bears a closer resemblance to I’m Not There than anything one might traditionally associate with Indian cinema.

Bound by Chastity Rules (1962, Shin Sang-ok)

A startling Korean film by auteur maudite Shin, this film - in an incredible restoration based on the only known extant prints - 16mm prints found in Taiwan with Chinese subtitles - there’s a lot of heady political critique here, some shockingly artificial performances, and lots of violent, oblique camera angles. Pierre Rissient, in his intro, compared the film to Oshima and Hou - a match for the ages. I’d drag Imamura into it too - there’s enough rough-and-tumble swagger to the film, enough pissant aggression in what could otherwise be a lilting gentle tragedy. Certainly worth a look if you ever get the opportunity.

Dillinger is Dead (1969, Marco Ferreri)

I didn’t get to see most of programmer Edith Kramer’s selections - her international melodramas or her programs of George Kuchar films - but I did get to see this, which she’s tried to show for decades, unable to do so because of expensive or confused American distribution rights. Finally, as guest director, she convinced Janus/Criterion to purchase the rights and strike a print, and what a gift she’s given to us by having worked so hard to put it on screen. This film is one of the hidden masterpieces of world cinema. I’ve never seen anything like it - it follows an engineer (Michel Piccoli) as he passes the time in his household late at night, his bored manners growingly increasingly unsettling and sinister. Magic abounds in this film: much of it is silent, but diegetic music from a radio plays nearly constantly, informing Piccoli’s every move) - the camerawork is magnificent, the editing perfectly paced. One extended sequence in which Piccoli watches Super 8 footage he’s projecting onto a wall is astonishing. And that ending! I dare not ruin it for you - suffice it to say it will floor you.

If anyone knows where I can find this film’s soundtrack, please let me know…

• BROWSE / IN TIMELINE
• « Telluride Report, Part 4: The I’s Have It
• » The Brave One

• BROWSE / IN Miscellaneous
• « Telluride Report, Part 4: The I’s Have It
• » The Brave One