Review: Film/Dance

Pina, Curzon Chelsea, dir Wim Wenders

Beautiful.  Pina is imbued with a real sense of loss. The dancers talk direct to camera as if having staggered away from a car crash. They talk in truncated sentences as a child might mourn a parent about inspiration, yearning now that Pina Bausch is dead. The structure of the film is the 3D presentation of Pina Baush’s signature work, including Rite of Spring, Café Muller, Kontakthof interspersed with site-specific filmed dance sequences and the dancers’ thoughts. There is a strong elemental quality that runs throughout Bausch’s work which the film captures beautifully. Glimpses of a natural life sometimes cut off by the backdrop of a high-rise monorail, open-glassed housing, barren, desert terrain or subterranean mining tunnels as dancers criss-cross concrete, sand, flooring or wood. The most impressive, Vollmond, shows a rock-spattered terrain doused first by trickles of water which build into a deluge. The female dancers have a look: shoulder-length hair, maxi dresses which hide their legs. The impression is that movement explodes from the centre, filling the immediate space and beyond. Wim Wenders’ direction respects this dynamic and with sharp lighting, colours and angles gives the film a fresh, crisp aesthetic. See it on the big screen before it’s consigned to DVD.