Film Review
Pina
Technically dazzling 3D dance doc likely to leave viewers dizzy
Pina
Directed by Wim Wenders
Mad filmmaker Werner Herzog may have conjured up a whole new genre when he directed his 3D art-house documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams. That film—combining ancient cave art with eye-popping 3D technology—became an award-winning hit. Now, fellow German auteur Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire, Until the End of the World) has followed suit, creating a 3D documentary about avant garde dance choreographer Pina Bausch.
Wenders—who knows a thing or two about producing lyrical, languid beauty with a camera—uses 3D technology not to capture the reality of dance, but to heighten the theatricality of Pina’s highly experimental compositions. Shooting dance on film isn’t easy. In its regular milieu—on stage—dance is meant to be viewed from a set, all-encompassing distance. Here, Wenders punches in on the dancers, giving us intimate close-ups of faces, hands, feet. If this were a film about traditional ballet, the approach would be disastrous. But Pina’s work is anything but traditional. Occasionally, it’s hard to even identify it as “dance” (two men lying on the floor spitting water on one another, for example). Moving the camera in close highlights the small, startling details inherent in Pina’s choreography.
At first, Wenders captures Pina’s famed routines on an actual stage, proscenium jutting out from the sides and seat-backs spreading in front of us—heavily emphasizing the theatrical setting and giving us plenty of three-dimensional depth. Later, Wenders removes Pina’s dancers from the boards, sending them out into urban parks, public swimming pools, abandoned subway tunnels and other unusual settings to perform their movements.
Pina herself passed away in 2009—just as Wenders was prepping to shoot—and this film is a rare opportunity to see a large (some might say overwhelming) sampling of her work. Judged by the evidence at hand, it’s raw, emotional and extremely earthy. (In the case of the first performance—dancers stomping, rolling and sweating on a stage covered in dirt—the last adjective gets run through all its definitions.) But Pina preaches best to the converted. If you’re a dancer yourself or harbor a deep love for the art form, you’re likely to be moved and inspired by Pina.
If not, you’ll only be confused as to what the woman’s routines are attempting to communicate. (A man sits in the back of an elevated train with giant cardboard ears taped to his head. A woman in a sparkly dress enters. She beats up a pillow and makes monster sound effects. What does this signify? Call me a plebe, but I’m at a complete loss.) I went into the film with exactly zero knowledge or appreciation of modern interpretive dance. Honestly, those numbers haven’t changed much.
As a cinematic catalogue of a visual art form, Pina is invaluable. As a documentary film, however, it’s not particularly elucidative. How exactly does one film a 3D documentary in the first place? Wenders avoids the “talking head” approach to documentary filmmaking by interviewing the members of Pina’s troupe in voice-over. They all gush about how awesome and brilliant the woman was—although it doesn’t appear she said more than one or two words to the lot of them over the course of 20 or 30 years. Pina seemed to speak either in highly generalized Hallmark greeting card slogans (“Dance for love.”) or cryptic Big Brother-ish mottos (“Fragility is strength.”). On the extremely rare occasion that she speaks for herself in some old archival footage, Pina doesn’t discuss technique or style or training or anything even remotely concrete. At least Wenders answers the question of how to insert archival footage into a 3D movie—he places a film projector in the foreground, adds the heads of seated students at midfield and flashes the old images on a screen within a screen. Clever as this might be, the old film footage provides no biographical information on the woman, no contextualizing of her work and no real idea of what made her such a revered figure.
There’s little doubt that Pina Bausch was a remarkable artist. Capturing her innovative work in a 3D setting is a dazzling way to celebrate her legacy. Pina certainly resembles no other dance film ever made. But it’s likely to frustrate, confuse and bore those not already intimately familiar with the subject at hand.
Pina[ IMDB ] [ view trailer ] German director Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire) directs this 3D art-house documentary about avant garde dance choreographer Pina Bausch. The film isn't particularly elucidative, offering plenty (some might say an overwhelming amount) of the recently deceased dancer's experimental routines with little background or explanation. The visuals are often stunning, and Wenders' self-conscious style only heightens the theatricality of Pina's work. But if you aren't already a fan of modern interpretive dance, this isn't for you. 103 minutes PG. |
- Pina for non-dancers [ Thu Feb 16 2012 9:43 AM ]
Devin, I am normally a big fan of your cogent film critiques, but I think it was a serious mistake to have you review the Pina Bausch 3D film.
Of course this film is for dancers and dance lovers! What did you expect?! Pina was one of the great originals and innovators and she brought a sense of the unknown and unseen back into what was becoming a stale, obvious medium.
She also brought a stylistic lineage dating back to the NYC dance renaissance of the 60's and early 70's, when Paul Taylor was giving us pieces about incest and Meredith Monk's dance company was occupying an entire building and you had to walk through tiny rooms all over for hours to really see the scope of the piece.
Dance is a very fragile medium, and dancers are like race-horses - they need to be constantly trained and exercised in order to perform at the peak of their skills. They also injure easily, and it is in this delicate balance of need and art that we sometimes (but rarely) get the innovators like Pina. Mostly it is a smoothly oiled machine that makes most of its revenue from imported stars and the annual Nutcrackers around the country. Not a fertile environment for groundbreaking work.
Pina carried the torch for the enigma, the outsider and the irreplaceable. The loss of her is a deep wound that we as dancers and dance lovers will not easily recover from. It would have been nice to have a writer who understood our grief, and allowed us to mourn her appropriately through the reverent documenting of her once-in-a-lifetime partnership with the equally eccentric and gifted filmmaker Wim Wenders.
Your review kind of reminds me of the final scene in Hesher where a drunk Joseph Gordon-Levitt crashes a funeral. In the movie, his inarticulate rant creates the catharsis for a boy and his father to exorcise their grief. In your case, you are just rudely crashing a funeral - no catharsis, and no understanding of who or what or why. Keep up the great work you do so well, but please avoid dance films next time. You are an excellent writer who is finally and truly out of your league.
(PS - Why is there no info on where to see it? Because you don't really care?)
Last edited [2/16/12 9:54 AM] - As I said ... [ Thu Feb 16 2012 11:34 AM ]
If you're a modern dancer, obviously you'll be moved by the film. But that's hardly an accomplishment. That's called preaching to the converted. A truly great documentary should engage, fascinate and educate audiences on a subject they know nothing about.
(P.S. Info on where a film is playing is listed in the Film Times/Capsules. Always has been. It has nothing to do with my "caring" about a film.)
--Devin
- As you said... [ Thu Feb 16 2012 12:56 PM ]
It is not a documentary! That is just a category they use for distribution purposes. It is a high-tech, Wim-centric tribute to the passing of a great artist. My point, which you have done nothing to invalidate, is that people who don't know anything about dance should not be critiquing it, just as people who don't know anything about film should not be film critics, which I am sure is a pet peeve of yours.
You are clearly, from the volume of your writings, a sedentary person. At least that is my initial prejudice, BECAUSE I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT YOU! That's why I wouldn't be a good person to critique you if I were a paid columnist. But my suspicion is that you have little or no background or history with much of anything physical, including Dance, MMA, Football, Triathlons, or Snowboarding, to name but a few of the more challenging physical professions. That's why you generally stay away from writing about them.
A documentary is a window into the seemingly objective reality of a specific subject, and Pina's world was very much as enigmatic and evasive as what you saw in the film. I know because I studied with several of her dancers in NY. Thus Wim's approach was even more truthful than a standard bio-pic would have been, and much more what she would have wanted, rather than what some intelligent but befuddled film critic with all his rules and expectations found acceptable.
And as for your insistence on defining what a truly great documentary is, there is no such definition. How do you explain Powaqqatsi? That was as successful as any documentary had ever been up to that point. Still is, as a matter of fact. All I'm asking is that you do what you do best my friend, which is writing clever, sometimes biting columns from the recumbent safety of your office chair about film and film making, and leave the dance to dancers and dance aficionados.
(PS. Thank you for the info on where to see it, but I am still not seeing where it is listed. Can you clarify?)
Last edited [2/16/12 1:10 PM] - You make [ Thu Feb 16 2012 10:47 PM ]
some excellent points, even though you're essentially calling me a fat, lazy fuck. (I'm not arguing the point, but it seems like I should be highly insulted.)
Funny thing is I agree with your assessment of the film. I can see how Wenders' indirect approach mirrors Pina's enigmatic philosophy about dance. I can see why you would like it. I said as much in the review.
But you lose your grip on the point by making a mistake so many people make with art criticism. I'm not criticizing the subject, Ms. Bausch. I'm sure she was lovely lady. I'm criticizing Wenders' film. Pina is a film. I'm a film critic. Makes sense to me. And no, I don't think only people with film degrees should be able to criticize film--just as I don't think that only artists should be allowed to look at paintings or that only trained dancers should be able to shake their groove thing. Or that only boxers should be allowed to see Raging Bull. Or that only homicidal maniacs can like Texas Chain Saw Massacre. My job is to break down a film and clearly communicate to a wide variety of audiences what it's like. I think I've done that here.
The thrust of your argument seems to be that resumes should be scrutinized at the theater door and that tickets to this film should only be sold to people who have degrees in modern dance. Sounds unnecessarily exclusionary to me. But it's not that far off from what I said, that the film is "likely to frustrate, confuse and bore those not already intimately familiar with the subject at hand." You seem to be agreeing with me. So ... uh, good on ya.
(PS: If you want to see where a film is playing, go to the section of the paper marked "Film Times/Capsules." It's right up there on the navigation bar. It will let you know everything you need. Films open on Friday and times are upgraded online every Thursday night at midnight.)
--Devin
- Exclusionary is exactly the right word! [ Fri Feb 17 2012 8:35 AM ]
Your review, by its very nature, was exclusionary. You were establishing clear parameters about what type of audience might go and see it, thus by your own wording excluding more mainstream theater-goers. You did not challenge your readers to step out of their comfort zone and give it a chance, you basically told them not to bother.
But I agreed with you about the insularity of the potential audience, and felt that consequently a dance critic would have been a better choice, because you clearly have no expertise on the subject of dance filmmaking and the mutations of its art form that would have lead to such a film being shot in the way that it was by Mr. Wenders.
A dance aficionado would have understood immediately and not been so troubled by what you considered to be transgressions of the documentary form. Clearly you have watched few, if any, dance documentaries, which are often extremely experimental in nature.
Dance has always been the big challenge for both cinematographers and filmmakers, because there is that proscenium arch dilemma - do I give the audience the stage eye view, or do I pull them into the more limited but powerful minutiae of the human body striving for irrational perfection, sweat and dirt and all. Either way there is a tremendous level of compromise, and many groundbreaking camera techniques have been utilized to overcome that dilemma in a visually stimulating way for decades now.
To audiences who have followed the art of filming dance over long periods of history, there is much to be said for Wenders approach. He is taking all the challenges that have gone before and solving them in an even more groundbreaking way. There is a distinct lineage and history to this that you are clearly ignorant of. To you there is only spinning heads bewilderment, which merely serves to prove my point - you should not have been reviewing this.
As to your reading of my assessment of you physically, that is your story and not mine. As I stated clearly I DON'T EVEN KNOW YOU! But I still happen to believe you are a skilled film critic in general, and have acknowledged that numerous times. I am truly looking forward to seeing this film!
(And PS backatcha! The Pina info was not up when I first looked, which is why I was so confused. Thanks for the tip on upgrading times)
- Sorry [ Fri Feb 17 2012 9:57 AM ]
But you're becoming less and less cogent here. You castigate my review as exclusionary because I didn't encourage ordinary readers to step out of their comfort zone and go see this challenging film. Correct. I didn't. I don't believe the majority of them would like it. Then you go on to reiterate that only trained professional dance aficionados who have followed the art form "for decades" can understand and appreciate the film. Again, you're making my argument for me.
Also, from what you've said, it seems that you haven't even seen the film yet. Maybe you should actually watch it before arguing so vociferously in favor of it. I may not be a dancer, but at least I saw the movie we've just spent 1,000 or so words debating. That's kinda the first rule of film criticism.
--Devin
- Alien Intervention! [ Fri Feb 17 2012 4:11 PM ]
Hey Martian! Thanks for landing! That explains Devin's lack of earthly reality - he is not from this planet! I will keep that in mind in further communications!
Last edited [2/17/12 4:13 PM] - I'm sorry [ Fri Feb 17 2012 4:16 PM ]
Did you need to see my credentials before I posted a comment on this forum?
- No need to be sorry your blueness [ Fri Feb 17 2012 4:37 PM ]
I'll keep both you aliens posted as to how I liked the film in 3-D. Meanwhile, don't leave the planet until I can say goodbye!
- I'm excited to see my family. Next week I'm moving back [ Fri Feb 17 2012 6:00 PM ]
to my home planet of Alderaan.
What?
