Review: Pina

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Pina

I've never claimed to be a fan of modern dance. While I have great respect for dancers' and choreographers' creative talents, physical abilities and dedication, I've always thought of modern dance as an art form that's more entertaining to do than to watch. Admittedly, I've seen only a handful of modern dance performances. Perhaps I'm but a mere philistine -- frankly, I just didn't get most of them.

After seeing Pina, however, I have a newfound appreciation and understanding of modern dance. The captivating new Wim Wenders documentary about German choreographer Pina Bausch is a feast of striking imagery that makes the art of dance come alive like no other movie I've seen.

Pina is a film of great beauty, although one that stems from great tragedy. After a long and distinguished career as a dancer, choreographer, teacher and ballet director, Bausch died suddenly of cancer at age 68 in 2009. Her death came only days before shooting for Pina was scheduled to begin, so what was to be a film about an aging artist still at the height of her career is instead a moving tribute to her artistic legacy.

As such, we see Bausch only in brief, grainy flashbacks. Pina is less about Bausch than her work, and the film offers few details about her. Pina features many brief commentaries from members of Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, the dance company Bausch directed from 1972 until her death, but the dancers say little about Bausch's life story. Instead, they tell us what it was like to work with her, drawing portraits of a woman who was demanding but unfailingly supportive, nurturing many a dancer's talent while also keeping many a dancer's ego in check. One of the film's more interesting aspects is that the dancers speak many languages and come from many cultures. The company may be based in Germany, but it's truly an international group.

What Pina lacks in biographical detail, it more than makes up for in endlessly fascinating dance footage. Pina is the rare 3D film that actually makes good use of 3D; Wenders and cinematographer Hélène Louvart understand how to use the technology effectively, brilliantly capturing the dancers' movements and highlighting deep contrasts between objects in the background and foreground.  The 3D is no mere gimmick in Pina; it's integral to the film's message about the power of dance to communicate emotion.

Thanks to great 3D visuals, intimate camerawork and real-world backdrops in the German cities of Solingen, Wuppertal and Essen, Pina makes the sometimes impenetrable nature of modern dance surprisingly accessible. The film features two of Bausch's most famous works, Café Müller (set in a café where dancers crash into tables and chairs) and Rite of Spring (in which dancers perform on a stage covered with soil), works that are far more meaningful than any I had seen before. It's easy to see why Bausch was so successful, for her works are very relevant, with universal themes of the cycle of life, the joy and pain of love, and many other aspects of the human condition.

I can think of no greater compliment to Pina than this: After seeing it, I'm almost a fan of modern dance. (I must emphasize almost. Much as Pina intrigued me, I'm not likely to add modern dance films to my Netflix queue anytime soon.) A truly great documentary does more than enlighten viewers; it also sparks their interest in a subject they may have had little or no interest in before. Pina is in every way this sort of documentary -- it's so charming, intriguing and visually engrossing that it held my attention to the end, broadened my cultural horizons and made me realize that yes, dance can be entertaining even if the venue doesn't offer happy-hour prices all day on Thursdays and the dancers wear more than thongs. (Note to a fellow Slackerwood contributor who doubted my intentions when I asked to review a film about dancing: Yes -- I knew it would not be about that kind of dancing. Give me a little credit for being a sophisticated, cultured person, at least on a good day.)

Pina has garnered a long list of European film awards and nominations, along with a well deserved Oscar nomination for Best Documentary Feature. I suspect the Academy will give the nod to a film with more popular appeal, such as the football doc Undefeated, or more political implications, such as the much-lauded Afghan war doc Hell and Back Again. But awards aside, Pina deserves a wide audience for its beguiling take on an often unappreciated art form.