‘Pina’: Wim Wender’s flawed, beautiful 3D dance documentary [MOVIE REVIEW]

Wim Wenders
Ditta Miranda Jasjfi in “Vollmond” in Wim Wenders’ “Pina.” Photo by Donata Wenders.
Wim Wenders

Ditta Miranda Jasjfi in “Vollmond” in Wim Wenders’ “Pina.” Photo by Donata Wenders.

“Pina,” the new documentary about the remarkable modern dance deity Pina Bausch and her Tanztheater Wuppertal by acclaimed filmmaker Wim Wenders, is a highly ambitious film. In the works, or at least in Wenders’ imagination, for a very long time, it became almost a running joke between Bausch and Wenders as to the timeframe. The delay? Film technology, or at least the kind of technology that Wenders felt was necessary to make the kind of dance film he imagined. With the advent and advancement of 3D, Wenders finally felt he could proceed. Ironically, just as principal photography was about to begin, Bausch died, just short of her 69th birthday. So what was to be a collaboration of two artists became, instead, something of an homage to her life’s work as seen through the eyes of her dancers and illustrated by several of her more famous works.

The use of 3D technology does, without a doubt, add a perspective to the work, although remarkably, it is primarily when the dancers are taken out of the studio and juxtaposed against nature that the filming brings more life than a traditional camera would, yielding several breathtaking moments, most significantly when one of the male dancers performs along the precipice of a stunning open mining pit. “Vollmond,” choreographed on stage against an exquisitely designed Becket-like set with a large rock and waterfall, is used to greatest effect in 3D, again, juxtaposing the dancers against the faux-nature-like scenery.

Because of Bausch’s untimely death, all interviews and examples of her teaching and dancing had to be pulled from archival footage. Although quite interesting, more illustrative was Wenders’ use of Bausch’s international cast of principal dancers, many of whom had been with her since the inception of her company, to express, through dance, how they felt about what they had learned from Pina.

I have long considered dance to be the ultimate art form, consolidating theatrical drama, music and movement, but I had never heard it expressed as well as one of the Bausch dancers when she said that dance was language at its most fundamental. Pina had given her a language that did not consist of words, but still one of a specific vocabulary. In each solo, filmed outdoors either in downtown Wuppertal or in the lush countryside, dancers conveyed this vocabulary of danger, love, joy, sorrow…all of the emotions. Ironically, 3D seemed to work against the dancer when filmed in the urban setting because the camera seemed to thrust the hyper modern setting with its hanging monorails to the forefront rather than, as when the dancers were filmed in woods, hills or along canyons, push the performer ahead of the backdrop.

Bausch, who studied at Julliard and went on to work with modern dance pioneers Kurt Jooss, Antony Tudor, José Limón and Paul Taylor, was famous not only for her choreography and dance technique, but also for her avant garde perspective. Wenders highlights four of her most famous pieces for this documentary – “Kontakthoff,” “Café Müller,” “Vollmond” and “Rite of Spring,” and it is here that his self indulgence is most heavily felt.

“Vollmond,” as previously mentioned, is magnificently staged with a giant rock, moat and waterfall, a Beckettesque setting most successfully emphasizing Bausch’s combination of performance art with theater of the absurd. Wenders uses both “Kontakthoff” and “Café Müller” to delve into their evolution through seemingly endless repetition. It would surely have sufficed to illustrate the very long “Café Müller” by showing Bausch dancing the piece followed by her protégée’s interpretation and explanation. Clearly not a proponent of “less is more,” I was left with the feeling that I just wished he could have let me in on the secret or the joke and then moved on. More criminal, however, is what Wenders did to “The Rite of Spring.” Deserving of its place alongside Martha Graham’s and Maurice Béjart’s choreography, Bausch’s interpretation is even more primal and, if possible, sensual and dangerous. But just as the coupling is about to take place – sweaty, terror-stricken, unwilling – Wenders cuts away to archival footage of Bausch leading her dancers in rehearsal before returning to the “consummation.” Because this occurred at the very beginning of the documentary, I was disinclined to love the film as I felt that this was an indication that Wenders didn’t truly understand the language of dance. As a filmmaker, he made a classic beginner’s mistake. Never interrupt the tension. Don’t stop the action; allow the audience to hold the emotion before cutting away.

But flawed as the film may be, it is still a celebration of the art of dance through the spiritual presence of Pina Bausch, one of the great choreographers of the twentieth century whose work honored her mentors, Jooss, Tudor, Limón and Taylor, as well as her influences, not the least of whom were Martha Graham, Maurice Béjart, Ruth St. Denis, Ted Shawn, and Merce Cunningham.

Opening January 13 at the Landmark Theatre and ArcLight Hollywood.

Neely also writes a blog about writers in television.

 

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