Pina

Wim Wenders’s documentary (art film? love letter?) about choreographer Pina Bausch is a magnificent testament to the power of dance.  Begun when Bausch was still alive but made primarily after her death, the film is a series of remembrances from her dancers and filmed sequences of her celebrated dance pieces. These dances are filmed live in theaters, staged for the camera in sets, and performed out in the natural world and the city of Wuppertal, Germany, home of her Tanztheater company.  Each member of the company sums up their experience of Pina in about one sentence, and the rest is expressed in dance.

Although we see some of Bausch’s most famous pieces, almost none are presented in their entirety. This makes the film extremely accessible even to those who, like me, are not especially inclined toward dance performance. It's clear that Bausch was an exceptionally theatrical choreographer with a tremendous flair for narrative.  Some of the most breathtaking sequences occur when the dancers move outside of the theatre/studio into Wuppertal itself; by the end of the film, I found myself really wanting to visit Germany!  There are many dancers in this company, and each one gets a chance to express themselves for Wenders’s camera. It is overwhelmingly emotional and detailed, but I never got bored or found any of the dances repetitive.

The use of 3D is wonderful. Wenders seems to be the first filmmaker since Alfred Hitchcock to realize that 3D is best suited for theatrical subjects and the performing arts, and 3D films that present stage environments utilizing very little camera movement and very few cuts are exponentially more effective than computer-generated worlds with things flying at you. 3D is a technology that provides both detachment and immediacy; the audience is always acutely aware of the artificiality of the experience but is nevertheless drawn into the realistic allure of depth. 

Pina is an invitation.  It invites the non-dancer to experience dance.  It invites the uninitiated to experience theater.  It invites the 3D naysayer to embrace a 3D movie.  It is a gift from one artist to another and a gift of art to an audience, a tribute and a triumph.