Despite some initial fears that the Telluride Film Festival would be reshaped into something unfamiliar to past festival-goers due to a changing of the guard this year – Gary Meyer and Tom Luddy replaced Bill and Stella Pence as the Festival directors – the event seems as innovative, varied and as well organized as it’s always been. In fact, there are more films than usual thanks to a new venue called The Backlot. It’s a 63-seat theatre located inside the Telluride library and is devoted entirely to screening new documentaries. Another plus for film lovers who can’t afford the regular festival or Acme pass is that there are more free screenings than ever before as well as bargain passes (the Late Show pass) and individual tickets sold when available.  Unlike past Telluride festivals there was less secrecy about some of the festival titles scheduled this year – usually attendees don’t know the lineup until opening day. But there are still plenty of TBA slots to be announced over the next few days and some unexpected surprises could pop up such as Peter Greenaway’s new feature about the painter Rembrant, NIGHTWATCHING, or maybe David Cronenberg’s latest, EASTERN PROMISE.

For me, the schedule is one of the best in recent memory because of the abundance of revivals and rare archival treasures. Most of these such as PEOPLE ON SUNDAY (1929, a collaboration between Edgar G. Ulmer, Robert Siodmak, Fred Zinnemann, Billy Wilder, cinematographer Eugene Schufftan & Kurt Siodmak) are rare one time showings with no future DVD or theatrical release plans in the works. In the case of PEOPLE ON SUNDAY, it is a recently restored print from the Netherlands Film Museum and will be presented with a live music score by the Mont Alto Orchestra.

My first film of the festival was BERGMAN ISLAND: INGMAR BERGMAN ON FARO ISLAND, CINEMA & LIFE at the Backlot. This 2004 documentary was originally made for Swedish television and is probably the most informal and relaxed portrait of the director ever presented. Although the film is primarily focused on Bergman’s relationship to Faro Island which became a favorite film location for him (starting with THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY) and later his final home, it also works as a touching career overview of the elderly artist as he candidly answers questions about his greatest fears, relationships (5 marriages and his many children plus well known affairs with actresses Bibi Andersson, Liv Ullman and others), creative turning points (SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT, SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE) and even misinterpretations of his work that he generated and encouraged such as the belief that CRIES AND WHISPERS was based on four aspects of his mother’s personality. One of the film’s greatest revelations was the fact that Bergman was a 16mm home movie enthusiast and rare material from his amateur films are sprinkled throughout BERGMAN ISLAND – footage of Bergman and crew members surveying a coastal location for THE SEVENTH SEAL, Bibi Andersson flirting with Victor Sjostrom between filming on WILD STRAWBERRIES, Bergman and cinematographer Sven Nykvist on the set of PERSONA. Naturally, there are also clips from selected Bergman films as well as his own anecdotes about his family, youth and other influences on his development as a filmmaker and theatre director. I couldn’t think of a better movie to launch Telluride’s 34^th festival since it is also a tribute to the late director whose work inspired people like James Card, Bill & Stella Pence and Tom Luddy to create a film festival that honors such visionaries and their work, a true validation of cinema as an art form.

Edith Kramer, the former curator of the Berkeley Pacific Film Archive, is this year’s guest director and her first presentation was THE WAY YOU WANTED ME, a 1944 film from Finland by Teuvo Tulio. His work is practically unknown in the U.S. but is slowly gaining a reputation in Europe where his popular melodramas of the 40s and 50s are finally being discovered and shown at festival retrospectives. Aki and Mika Kaurismaki, whose films are probably among the few Finnish features familiar to U.S. audiences, are huge fans of Tulio’s films and you can see his influence on Aki Kaurismaki’s THE MATCH FACTORY GIRL (1990) in particular. Filmed immediately after World War II, THE WAY YOU WANTED ME reflects the bleak emotional mood of the country through its heroine Maija who begins the film as an innocent country girl and is then slowly destroyed by the corrupting influences of the city, a popular theme in Tulio’s work. Despite the extreme melodramatic flow of the narrative which depicts Maija’s degradation in relentless detail, Tulio’s approach is deliberately deadpan on an emotional level – the drama exists in the powerful imagery, each frame as vivid and expressive as a graphic novel panel. Another filmmaker who comes to mind as you watch Tulio’s strikingly black and white compositions and operatic silent film-like theatrics is Guy Maddin.

You can always count on at least one or two films to arouse some controversy each year at the Telluride festival. In the past titles such as Catharine Breillat’s “A ma soeur!,” (aka “The Fat Girl”), Gasper Noe’s “Irreversible,” & Hany Abu-Assad’s “Paradise Now” drastically divided attendees over their merits or lack of them. This year I nominate Aleksei Balabanov’s CARGO 200 as the festival’s most compelling “feel bad” movie – at least so far. Set in 1984 in Russia, the film is allegedly based on a true story but the events that transpire are too grotesque to be believed. But there is something incredibly familiar about the storyline and if you’re a former English lit major you’ll recognize William Faulkner’s “Sanctuary” transposed to a setting in rural Russia at a time when that nation was coming apart at the seams. The Temple Drake character becomes the virginal daughter of a Communist party boss with a paratrooper boyfriend off fighting in Afghanistan, the Gowan Stevens character is depicted as an alcohol-swilling disco party boy and the impotent sadist Popeye is now a psychotic cop named  who uses a vodka bottle, not a corncob, to express himself sexually in one of the film’s many disturbing scenes. Like Faulkner’s original story, Angelika (the Temple Drake stand-in) is stranded at a moonshiner’s house in the sticks and becomes the helpless captive of the deranged Captain Zhurov. As a portrait of the collapse of Russia in both moral, political and philosophical terms, it’s often quite effective with scenes that show characters living in squalor or moving through industrial, polluted landscapes. But the treatment of the kidnapped Angelika is so horrific and cruel - even if she is supposed to serve as a metaphor for a debased Russia – that many people will have trouble adapting to or accepting Balabanov’s uncompromising film. In Russia the film has been attacked and vilified for obvious reasons by critics and filmgoers alike. Even as a mean-spirited black comedy it’s hard to justify some of the film’s excesses. But it stays with you whether you want it to or not. Balabanov is a director to watch and his previous features such as “Brother” (aka Brat) – a critically acclaimed 1997 revenge drama about a Russian youth turning the tables on some gangsters in Petersburg – gave one hope for a new wave of promising Russian filmmakers.