Review:
"Pina"
Release Date: Feb. 10, 2012
Rating: Unrated Running Time: 103 minutes It’s no coincidence that the directors who make the best use of 3D technology are those who are considered artists as much as filmmakers. Think Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, and Werner Herzog. They have employed 3D to enhance the experience of watching their films and documentaries, not for cheap thrills or to goose box office grosses. Now add Pina’s Wim Wenders to this list of directors. Wenders’ performance-driven documentary employs 3D to put us in the front row of his celebration of the life and work of the late German modern dance performer and choreographer Pina Bausch. Wenders beautifully and seamlessly weaves together many of Bausch’s most famous dance pieces, including The Rite of Spring and Café Muller. Like Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Pina offers an intimate “you are there” experience as Wenders passionately recreates these dance pieces in theater and studio settings, the inside of a suspension railway car, the streets below the railway system, and in wooded areas. Through the simple turning of a limb to the twisting of taut bodies, Wenders gracefully honors Bausch’s fascination with the complicated relationships that have existed for an eternity between men and women as well as the young and the restless and the old and the wistful. Bausch died in 2009 during the preparation of the documentary, but this powerful selection of her life’s work will earn her many new admirers in death thanks to Wenders. Robert Sims Aired: Feb. 9, 2012 Web site: http://www.ifcfilms.com/films/pina |
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