By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Wim Wenders
Country: france, germany, united_kingdom
Year: 2011
Running time: 100
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1440266/
Bruce says: “For twenty years Wim Wenders and Pina Bausch planned on making this documentary. Wenders could not get started on the project because he could not figure out how to put her choreography on film. Finally, he decided to use 3D; together they selected four of her dance pieces for the film: Café Müller, Kontakthof, Vollmond, and Le Sacre du Printemps. The crew was assembled and filming was to begin; then, the phone rang. Pina had died after being diagnosed with cancer just five days prior. After the project was abandoned, Wenders was still haunted by the need to pay tribute to Pina. He started working with the members of her dance company, the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch. Slowly the film began to take shape.
“PINA is not about Pina Bausch the person. She does appear in some archival dance footage but Wenders never interviewed her nor do her dancers discuss her out of the context of her unique methods that enable the dancers to personally relate to the movements and the story they are telling. Wenders focuses on Pina the artistic director and the magic of the creative process. Not one of the dances is orthodox in any way. Pina constantly flipped gender and often integrated inanimate objects into a dance as though they were characters, just like the dancers. Her imagination was rich; her vision, unique.
“Wenders selected some outdoor locations where portions of each dance were performed, usually solo. The dancers, in close-ups, tell the story of how the various dance pieces evolved. Many remember the specific words that Pina used to inspire and which allowed the dancers to delve deeper into their inner selves. ‘You just have to get crazier,’ or ‘you have to scare me.’ Interestingly most of the female dancers are in their 40s or 50s, way beyond the shelf life of the average ballerina. The men vary more in age.
“The greatest weakness of the film is the use of 3D. Although very effective at times, it does not function well with lateral movement. Shots involving foreground, middle ground and background wind up looking more like a pop-up book than the reality 3D strives to create. Overhead shots of the theatre make it and the surroundings look like an architectural model rather than a real setting come to life. Surprisingly, the close-ups were quite powerful in 3D.
“Many Tanztheater Wuppertal performance pieces are available on YouTube. Pedro Almodóvar features Café Müller and Masurca Fogo in his 2002 film TALK TO HER. It is wonderful to see that her work will live on through the dance company. Wenders’ efforts without doubt would have been approved and deeply appreciated had Pina lived to see his film. 4 1/2 cats
“(PINA screened at the 2011 New York film Festival)”
Jason says: “Many in the audience for this advance screening of PINA were either dance enthusiasts or dancers themselves, and they probably appreciated many details more than I did, especially where performance was concerned. And yet, I’ll hazard that those who are attracted by an eye-popping trailer, technical curiosity, or just finding that it’s the only movie that starts in the next twenty minutes will in many cases be just as impressed. One doesn’t need to know the details to see something beautiful and difficult and recognize it as such, although I have no doubt that it gives flavor to the experience.
“The audience will not learn a lot about who Pina Bauch was, or her history. The dedication at the beginning and use of the past tense indicates that she died recently, and it’s easy to pick up from context that, though she seldom danced herself toward the end of her life, she was a brilliant and innovative choreographer. What we hear from interview subjects makes her sound, if anything, more enigmatic. What director Wim Wenders, the members of Pina’s company, and other dancers do is present her work – pieces large and small that are presented on stage, in a rehearsal hall, or on location.
“And… wow. There are at least a dozen different numbers presented in whole or in part, and they are pretty amazing. Even if the viewer doesn’t know much about dance, the first major sequence covers the stage in dirt to emphasize what sort of hard, sweaty work it can be, while later bits will sometimes allow the audience to think that a bit is kind of boring or pretentiously arty before dropping a bit that astounds with the sheer level of precise, strong athleticism it requires. One later number floods a part of the stage with water, and I couldn’t help but think, even while admiring the beauty of the action, that if I were jumping around that barefoot, I would inevitably slip and wipe half the company out. Even setting aside the physical difficulty, the numbers are beautiful, as often filled with whimsy as drama.
“For many, seeing them in this movie will likely be as close as they get to seeing these performances in person, not just because few cities have dance troupes as accomplished as Bauch’s. Wenders and cinematographer Hélène Louvart shoot the picture in 3D and make some of the best use of the format that anybody has, often setting their cameras up to capture the stage exactly, mimicking the sense of being in the audience at a performance in all three dimensions. It’s not just where they place the camera that creates the feeling of being in the audience, though – they manage to keep everything in focus, which means one’s eyes are not necessarily guided to one part of the screen. Numbers often will have multiple things going on at different depths, and just as at a live performance, the viewer must choose how much attention to give each dancer, especially if circumstance or preference finds you close to the front as it did for me.
“Don’t think that PINA is just a static recreation of watching a stage performance, though – the camera angle changes to bring the audience closer to the action than even a front-row seat, though not so often to suggest performances being assembled from the best bits of multiple takes. One piece would not work on the stage as presented because it involves repeatedly cutting from one set of dancers to another. The dance is also often liberated from the stage and studio to take place on the streets or other public places, with Wenders and Louvart seeming to have particular fun presenting a long escalator, the edge of a sand pit, and Wuppertal’s suspended trolleys in 3D.
“Wenders also make an interesting choice or two in how he presents Pina and the other dancers to the audience outside of performance. There’s a nifty use of special effects as two members of the troupe discuss Pina’s ‘Café Müller’ piece while it plays out within a dollhouse, for instance. What would be traditional talking-head interviews are instead presented as voice-overs to the dancers staring ahead, lost in thought; it’s a bit of a trick to suggest that these are inner thoughts rather than reactions to questions, but it works, with the different languages reinforcing the idea that we are seeing not just a local company, but some of the best in the world. These moments generally happen alongside the dancer appearing in a piece, and it’s intriguing to see that, in a business that is almost necessarily youth-obsessed, there are many spots for older dancers here, though I’m not sure whether this is how the pieces were conceived or if it’s a case of allowing the people Pina worked with over her long career moments in the spotlight.
“One other potentially interesting side-effect of shooting this in 3D: It will likely have this fine-arts documentary by a German director playing in the mainstream theaters that have the projectors to show it as well as the smaller boutique houses that might be its usual home, and potentially easier to discover for those who might not otherwise see the likes of it. I hope that turns out to be the case, because this is one of the best movies for that – not a lecture about what you should appreciate, or a lot of biographical details, but a demonstration of how something one might not give a lot of thought can be pretty amazing. 5 cats
“Seen 12 January 2012 in AMC Boston Common #15 (preview, digital 3D)”
Beth Ca. says: “I was absolutely dazzled by this doc! The artistic design was beautiful, and I love how the film-maker didn’t make the narrative all about who she is, where she was born, her personal life. We get a glimpse into her personality through the lens of the artists she worked with, and this paints a vivid picture of the choreographer. This is one of the best documentaries I have seen in my life. 5 cats”
Diane says: “This is Wim Wender’s doc about the dances choreographed by Pina Bausch. If you dance at all, you should see this. It just made me more aware that when most of us dance (like club dancing), we are using about 2% of the possibilities of our body. What one guy conveys just moving his fingers is fascinating. The narratives and humor in the dances are very clear. A solo dance accompanied by leaf blower was happily ridiculous.
“I saw PINA in ‘glorious 2D,’ as my movie theater advertised it, and thank goodness, judging from Bruce’s negative comments about the 3D. Bruce gave us some background in his review, which I’m grateful for, as the film provides very little. In fact, I didn’t even know Pina’s last name when the movie ended! I had lots of questions: were the dancers dancing to music in all of those outdoor shots, or was it added later? How much was the dancer’s improv, and how much was Pina’s? Where is their company? (I guessed the country correctly, but wasn’t certain.) Nevertheless, the dances and ‘interviews’ were great. Cinematography nom to come, if this is a 2012 film for Chlotrudis. 4 cats”
Thom says: “Here’s another film I missed at TIFF 2011 and one of my pals in Toronto picked this film and THE ARTIST as his festival favorites. And I was able to positively affirm that fans of Modern Dance would freak over the authenticity and artistry presented here. This is the story of the late, great choreographer Pina Bausch (featured so beautifully in the Almodovar classic TALK TO HER), Her feature dancers reflecting beautifully off-screen while they are being photographed in close-up on screen adds a lovely counterpoint to the extravagant dance sequences. But I’m simply mot interested in the art form. I’m not sold on adding 3-D to the already overburdened elements of modern technical skills required to make any project viable and I could have done without it here. 2.5 cats”
Toni says: “I didn’t find the dancing beautiful – it was ugly and technical to me. I preferred Carlos Sauras’ FADOS where it also told the story of the dance through dance… 2.5 cats”
TC says: “Wow, I have to admit i’m surprised at everyone’s reaction. I thought everyone here would love this…
Me, I absolutely loved PINA, and I’m not usually one to really fall for this kind of thing. I thought the 3D was incredible as well. Filmed in 3D as opposed to being converted into the process is always better, and I thought it added some real depth and body to the pieces. I didn’t find any of it ‘ugly’ as Toni did; I found most of the pieces very original and fascinatingly beautiful, some of it haunting, and some of it downright hilarious, but the very first piece – the one that was done with the stage covered in sod – was more than a bit unnerving. But the rest of it was AWESOME, at least IMHO. Can’t wait to get the DVD, I will be watching it a lot – and I’ve already given the soundtrack album quite a workout, the biggest disappointment of which is that the music from the ‘Seasons’ bits throughout the movie wasn’t included…
“I gave it an ‘A’ on Subject:CINEMA; here I suppose the equal would be somewhere around 4.75 cats.
“And as a postscript…I may have loved it but Kim was NOT as bowled over as I was…and she was quite put off by several of the pieces, including the ‘sod’ number and a couple of the bits in ‘Cafe Mueller’ as well…I think she gave it either a B- or a C+ in our review…”