Pina -- Film Review

Pina

Directed by Wim Wenders

This purports to be a documentary about German choreographer Pina Bausch (1940-2009).  It is not really a documentary, but rather a showcase of her choreography by some of the dancers who worked with her at her Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch in Germany.  What I liked about it was that it simply let the dance speak for itself.  They didn't try to explain anything, offered no commentary or interpretation or insight.  There was very little about Bausch's life, career, or philosophy of dance.  It was mostly dancing.  However, the dancing was imaginative and interesting.  There were on camera headshots of some of the dancers offering some commentary about Bausch, or their personal interactions with her, in various languages with English subtitles.  But these were sketchy and largely honorific, and made no attempt to draw a coherent picture of her life.  This is why I don't consider this film a documentary.  However, through the dancing one does get a feel for Bausch's very distinct style and her personality.   The dancing communicates and does so with great effect.  If I had to describe it in one word, I would say 'anguished'.  There is a lot of pain in her heart, and probably loneliness.  Although it doesn't come across as loneliness, it comes across as detachment.  Loneliness is a painful longing for connection.  And it is kind of optimistic.  It believes that one can find a solution in another person.  There is an expectation that connection can bring satisfaction.  But I don't feel much of that in Bausch.  People are together, but each seems to be absorbed in a world unto him or herself from which they cannot quite emerge.  They are disengaged.  People reach out to one another and try to connect, but they don't seem to be able to.  Connections are disturbed, particularly between men and women.  There is good differentiation between the sexes, but all of the connections between men and women throughout the film are abortive or disrupted or grotesque.  There is little mutual understanding in Bausch's world and little genuine warmth.  One sequence that stays with me was two women.  One woman is crawling on the floor through dirt and the other one is heaping more dirt upon her with a shovel.  There's a message in there somewhere.  I liked that they danced everywhere, not just on a stage or in a studio.  They danced on city streets, on beaches, in fields and meadows, in factories, on rocks and cliffsides, beside swimming pools, on dirt, and in the rain.   Dance is everywhere and at all times and places.  Some of her juxtapositions are striking and unusual.  This is another one of these films that will probably not have a large following in the United States.  The friend I went with chided me afterward for dragging him to this weird thing; but he is normal, and that is what I would expect from him.  Those of you out there who are not normal might like this.  But you'd better like dance before you go to this.  It was a little too long, but very beautifully done.  It expands the possibilities of dance in novel and interesting ways.