Dance, She Said...

If you’re hoping to emerge from Wim Wenders’ new documentary, "Pina," having learned about the life of German modern dance choreographer Pina Bausch, the film’s subject, allow me to warn you away from that expectation. What Wenders has made is not so much a documentary about Bausch as a remembrance of her; an impressionistic eulogy. Bausch unexpectedly passed away two days before shooting was scheduled to begin. Wenders was prepared to cancel the project but the dancers in Bausch's company (some of whom had worked with her for decades) convinced him to continue. For fans of modern dance the film is a feast. Others, like me, who are novices in the field will find a technically proficient yet ultimately hollow film.



"Pina" plunges the viewer right into the dancing without setting the scene. Wenders wants to engage the audience and then slowly unfold the documentary elements. Bausch is seen and heard, very briefly, in old clips; her sound bits are artistically vague. She wanted the dancing to speak for her. All of this is presented in 3D.  "Pina" is almost entirely staged and choreographed. With this level of control in addition to the fact that we are witnessing something that was designed to be presented on a stage both occupied and observed by real, three-dimensional people, Wenders has achieved one of the best and most worthy use of 3D.  

Bausch’s dances are recreated on stage, with the camera largely recording them from perspectives that would be possible from the audience. Others, however, are relocated to real-world settings. Wenders places these throughout in a deliberate way. At first, they take place in nature – at the top of a hill or alongside a stream. Then they move very abruptly into the city with a dance performed on a moving monorail car and then another on a street corner. Finally, we get dances set in locales that blend the two. One is presented inside a room with glass walls overlooking a verdant landscape. Another stunning example takes place on an expanse of grass that we only realize once the camera moves is nearly in the shadow of some massive, modern bridge-like structure. In blending the images of the two sides of dance, Wenders is offering a definition of the art form – of all art forms, perhaps.


Modern dance is not be the most commercial art and cinema may well be. The resulting mix makes the dances accessible to people who may not have been exposed to them. To a person who thinks these dances will be silly, a mere description of them would do nothing to convince her or him.  To see them so exuberantly and whimsically staged brings a better understanding of the art form. At the end of the film the audience still don’t know all that much about the life of Pina Bausch. That’s not what this film is for. It is about the beauty she gave the world and this film continues her work.