Went yesterday, finally, to see the latest film by Wim Wenders - "Pina" - a sort of memoir in hommage to Pina Pausch (1940-2009). Her company "Tanztheater Wuppertal" was and is famous for the unrelenting innovation in the approach to dance and the digging into the unspeakable.
The film consists of slices of some retrospektive famous productions by Pina Pausch and then, for the most of the film, commentaries and interpretations of the people in her company, how they saw her, what she meant to them, what they learned form her. In this it is in fact a documentary, but the calm, hidden and very emphatic hand of Wim Wenders give the film a dreamlike finish, in the best sense of the word. Here for once I think the 3D technique comes into itself in a marvelous way - after all, we sit in the audience and feel like we are sitting indeed in the theater and watch the performances ad hoc. It is no story about Pina, she is even seen not too often - though her performance in "Café Müller" is for me heartbreaking - it is more a puzzle of impressions by the people who worked for and with her for often many years. And she is behind this all.
I really was moved to see this film. I understand virtually nothing of dance. My home is more the 17th and 18th century, be it in music and art. But this was different - I was compelled and utterly absorbed - the way another, for me unknown language is applied is almost some sort of a shock. I did not all understand, what she was trying to convey, but I have the feeling, that I understood after all pretty well what she wanted to say. More I cannot tell you about it. I can only tell you, what came to my head and what made me think in a myriad of different directions. There is a stream of associations which were unlocked when I watched the dancers dancing, the surroundings taking its place in the dance and the expression of their faces.
First of all, the sheer bodily capability of control. The very haggard faces of the older dancers, as if they were spent and worn out. Then also the fact, that this are not dancers in the sense of classical ballet - beauties and skinny and etheral - no, here are real people, well trained, but real. Old and young ones, heavy built and skinny, tall and small - all of them with wonderful talking eyes. It touched me to see their eyes.
Then there are some breathtakingly beautiful spaces where the performance is presented - for me rooms are always so important and I was smashed by the beauty of the surroundings - especially a glasstructure in the midst of the woods, then a crate landscape of the "Ruhrpott", the mancreated moonlandscape of coals and steel. The spaces in those industrial buildings are overwhelming - a beauty of majesty and not aggressive, as industrial buildings can often be. At least I did not perceive them as aggressive.
One thing I also noted and I am not sure, if I can convey to you what I mean with this. Just let me say it: This is a very "german" film. In a good sense. Let me give you my impressions, which came floating in and out while watching and then perhaps you understand what I want to say with this. It is very german in the sense of its utter earnestness, the heavy significance, the unspoken tragedy, associations of C.G. Jung, Egon Schiele, early greek fertility rituals in an almost oppressive intellectual interpretation, of "Romantik" in the german sense of Runge and Die Blaue Blume. Of Expressionist paintings. Thomas Mann and Zauberberg. More superficial and therefore not so compelling, Bert Brecht and Kurt Weill.
Even with the dancers coming from all nationalities, it is through and through german. Whatever this means.
Great film. If you have the possibility to see it, do, by all means. Go in with a blank mind and give you over to the impressions - very Romantik in the best sense of the early 19th century Germany.
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