PINA (Wim Wenders, 2011)
A still from Pina.
Last night, in the darkness of The Avenue, Castlecourt, my life was forever changed. A 3D screening of Wim Wenders’ 2011 film Pina, screened as part of Docs Ireland.
In my mind, the height of 3D technology was when I saw the Grand Opera House panto that used 3D elements in 2011. Interestingly enough, the same year Pina was released. In the panto, a snake flew towards us in our glasses and I took mine off, afraid in the same way the people who saw Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat were afraid. I’ve since imagined that this is as far as 3D can go, a cartoon snake wiggling towards you, but last night, my life was changed.
The 3D in Pina breathed a life into the film, a sense that you were there, in an auditorium of people watching the dances live, or at times, as though you were on stage, dancing. It added a depth to the visuals that might not be attainable without the 3D, only adding more to the sense that the film was alive, and furthering the testaments of the dancers.
Pina is a dance movie, a celebration of German choreographer Pina Bausch, who unfortunately passed away in 2009. The film showcases several of her dances, performed by her company, as well as short interviews with these dancers, who talk of Pina with such care and affection. Even with minimal interviews, you feel as though you know Pina, you can feel her mark on each dancer so clearly. One dancer talks of how Pina would sit and watch them rehearse everyday, saying, ‘Pina watched me everyday for twenty-two years, longer than my parents saw me’.
The dances themselves are transfixing, unlike anything I’d ever seen. One dancer describes each of Pina’s dances as being about love and pain, and this interpretation is clear in each sequence. The dances are sometimes literal, and sometimes much more abstract and metaphorical, but there is a feeling that everyone watching could have an entirely different interpretation of the dances, a beautiful element that there is something for everyone in each dance.
Further than a celebration of dance, the film is a celebration of life itself. It is so deeply human, yet also so beyond the human experience. As I said, the film has a life to it, each dance has life within it, breathed into it by Pina herself. It feels as though Pina understood the world, and understood people in a way most people can’t, she seemed to have found beauty in everything. This is reflected in the cinematography, with a warm colour palette, inviting the viewer in. The dances are all staged in strikingly different places, sometimes on huge set pieces, and sometimes in nature, or in an industrial factory. Each setting for the dance is as beautiful as the last, despite being so different, and as we move into the areas that wouldn’t typically be considered beautiful, like an industrial factory, or the side of a busy road, they are still given the same love and care that the typically beautiful sets are. The film is a reminder that there is beauty in all if you have the right outlook.
A still from the film.
The film is a beautiful tribute to Pina, giving the dancers the space to celebrate her, a woman who so clearly impacted their lives. Rather than forcing the dancers into hard and personal interviews, Wim Wenders instead lets them repeat the choreography Pina had given them, a true celebration of their friend. The film also makes no attempt to delve into her history, or tell her life story, but rather lets the audience get to know her through what she clearly loved most, dance, painting a deeply moving portrait of a woman so clearly adored by her company.
A film that will stick with us forever, inspiring beyond words to try and find the beauty in all around us, and as, Pina said, ‘Dance, dance, otherwise we are lost’.
