51st Telluride Film Festival Day One: Piece by Piece, Conclave, and Nickel Boys

Benjamin Franklin famously said that death and taxes are the only certainties in life. With all due respect to Mr. Franklin, he never had the pleasure of experiencing Colorado’s unparalleled beauty, and he certainly couldn’t have foreseen the awe-inspiring allure of Telluride. Surrounded by lush greenery and towering peaks, Telluride remains as breathtaking on my eighth visit as it was the first time I set eyes on it. The crisp, thin air demands some acclimation as you navigate from one end of the village to the other, hopping between screenings at the Herzog, Palm, Galaxy, and other venues.

So here we are, covering the 51st annual Telluride Film Festival, an adventure that never grows old.

Reuniting with old friends and savoring the culinary delights at places like The Butcher and the Baker, Brown Dog Pizza, and other fantastic spots is all part of the pre-festival excitement. But once the festival kicks off, the whirlwind begins. Finding time to write, let alone eat, becomes a significant challenge.

I kicked off Telluride 51 with the Patron screening of Morgan Neville’s Piece by Piece. In true Telluride fashion, the festival thrives on secrecy. The full lineup isn’t revealed until the day before, and details about the Patron screening remain hidden until just hours before the film begins. This element of surprise adds a layer of intrigue to the festival, but makes it a bit of a challenge to chart out the weekend. But who am I to complain about anything related to this magical four-day event?

Neville’s Piece by Piece explores the life of music icon Pharrell Williams through vibrant Lego animation. It’s a joyous, colorful portrayal of his rise from humble beginnings to musical stardom. The film captures Pharrell’s boundless creativity and imagination – he was the one who came up with the idea to tell his story using Legos. As we explore his groundbreaking music, collaborations with legends, and the journey that shaped his career, I was astonished by the profound impact he’s had on the music industry. Calling him a musical icon feels like an understatement.

I eagerly moved on to the World Premiere of Edward Berger’s Conclave, featuring Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, and Isabella Rossellini. Adapted from Robert Harris’s novel, the film examines the complex and high-stakes process of electing a new pope, with Cardinal Lawrence (Fiennes), the Dean of the College of Cardinals, leading the charge. As he navigates this crucial event, Lawrence encounters a tangled web of ambitions, secrets, and unforeseen obstacles, all while guiding the Church through one of its most pivotal decisions on the global stage.

Conclave was my top pick at Telluride 51. I had already earmarked it as the Oscar frontrunner back in March, and I did something I rarely do before a film: I read the book. Robert Harris’s novel, though not a traditional thriller, offers a fascinating procedural insight into the enigmatic tradition of papal elections. As a Catholic, I was familiar with the basics – black smoke rising from the Vatican flue means no pope, while the white smoke signals a new one – but Harris’s detailed narrative provided a deeper, more engaging perspective on the process.

Given that I hailed Edward Berger’s All Quiet on the Western Front as the best film of 2022, it’s no surprise that Conclave left a strong impression. Berger does a stellar job adapting Harris’s source material, delivering a meticulously crafted film. The remarkable cast hits all the right notes: Fiennes is perfectly cast as the man burdened with the monumental task ahead; Tucci delivers what I’d consider his career-best performance as the mild-mannered candidate striving to prevent a return to outdated practices; Lithgow portrays the ambitious and assertive candidate with just the right touch of intensity; and Rossellini nearly steals the show with a few standout moments.

Conclave is tightly paced, moving seamlessly from scene to scene like the cascading waters of Ingram Falls Mountain at the heart of Telluride. There’s never a dull moment, thanks in large part to Nick Emerson’s sharp editing and Volker Bertelmann’s thunderous, ominous score.

The film carries a palpable weight – evident in the forceful opening and closing of doors, the resonant footsteps echoing down shadowy hallways, and, of course, in Fiennes’s compelling performance. Every aspect of the film underscores the gravity of Fiennes’ role, burdened by the significance of his appointment. He must navigate tradition with precision while acting as a detective to shield the papacy from scandals and drive the Church forward. Fiennes’s portrayal is so immersive that you almost forget you’re watching one of the finest actors of the past thirty years. His performance is truly spectacular.

Conclave stands out as one of the best films we’ll see this year and is poised to be a major Oscar contender. Beyond the awards, it has the potential to be a real crowd-pleaser – a masterful and enthralling pressure cooker that is as unexpectedly funny as it is timely. The parallels between the papal election and our own American Presidential elections are striking, making Conclave a film that may resonate with the zeitgeist more powerfully than any other this year.

I concluded Day One with RaMell Ross’s adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Nickel Boys. The film, set in 1960s Florida, revolves around Nickel Academy, a reform school entrenched in the Jim Crow-era South.

Ross’s film is one of the most ambitious I’ve encountered. The choice to present the story entirely through the perspectives of its main characters – literally seen through their eyes – was a bold creative decision, though it didn’t fully resonate with me. The camera work is disorienting to the extent that several viewers around me complained of nausea. Combined with the film’s 4:3 aspect ratio, which intensifies the claustrophobic feel, the result is a challenging viewing experience.

While I admire Ross for pushing creative boundaries and delivering a film that will certainly captivate the highbrow arthouse audience, I found the execution problematic. The film felt like a disjointed collection of scenes, with some elements, such as historical footage of MLK and clips from Stanley Kramer’s 1958 classic The Defiant Ones, providing a semblance of coherence. However, the inclusion of alligators, brain X-rays, and other experimental imagery left me puzzled. It’s clear that some may find deeper meaning in Ross’s approach, but the subdued response from the Telluride audience suggested that many, including myself, found the film excessively abstruse and hard to grasp.