Pina (2011)

Directed by: Wim Wenders | 103 minutes | dance, documentary | Starring: Pina Bausch, Regina Advento, Malou Airaudo, Ruth Amarante, Rainer Behr, Andrey Berezin, Damiano Ottavio Bigi, Bénédicte Billet, Ales Cucek, Clementine Deluy, Josephine Ann Endicott, Lutz Förster, Pablo Aran Gimeno, Mechthild Grossmann, Silvia Farias , Ditta Jasjfi, Barbara Kaufmann, Nayoung Kim, Daphnis Kokkinos, Ed Kortlandt, Eddie Martinez

Bookcases have been written about the life and work of dance pioneer Pina Bausch. As a film buff, you will know the German choreographer from some beautiful dance scenes in ‘Hable con ella’. In 2009 the German film veteran Wim Wenders came up with the idea to give four of her most famous works a 3D treatment together with Bausch. Unfortunately, fate did not cooperate. Before the work had even started, the choreographer died of cancer and Wenders had a problem.

Without Bausch, but with the help of her dancers, the film was made. We see pieces from ‘Le Sacre du Printemps’, ‘Cafe Müller’, ‘Kontakthof’ and ‘Vollmond’. In between, the dancers tell in a few sentences what Pina meant to them.

The result is a film that derives its main value from the pioneering work with 3D. We mainly know three-dimensional from spectacle genres and animation. Arthouse filmmakers have hardly dared to do it. The result is therefore instructive. The dance work, already so passionate and energetic at Bausch, gains (literally) in depth and spectacle.

Still, filming the performing arts has its own problems, although these also apply to 2D. The choreographies have been written for viewing from a room. Close-ups, editing and side shots diminish the original strength of the work, especially in the group pieces. Another problem is the advanced age of the dancers. It’s not noticeable from the room, but you can’t escape it up close. The young virgin being sacrificed in ‘Le Sacre du Printemps’ is of an age where you deserve a trophy as a virgin, not a walk to the sacrificial block.

Some dance scenes were shot in the Wuppertal outside world: a factory hall, an excavation, a swimming pool. The combination of measured dance moves and everyday life passing by often produces fascinating results.

And then there are the words the dancers speak about their Pina, often no more than a few sentences. Thank God we are spared the American kind of accolades. The dancers loved their leader, but they don’t make her into a superhuman character.

For example, ‘Pina’ is a loving tribute to a great artist and an instructive study of converting higher art into 3D cinema. It is unfortunate that those two things sometimes bite each other. But for a director who will be pioneering new film techniques at the age of 65, we bow to the ground. With a pirouette to top it off.