Pina

As I'm getting caught up on 2012 Oscar nominees, there are a still a few stragglers from 2011 that are just being released on DVD from the Best Documentary Feature category. One is Pina, a film by Wim Wenders, celebrating the German choreographer Pina Bausch.

I know almost nothing about modern dance, so I was unsure how I would react to this film, wondering if I would end up reading the paper while it was on. Well, I wasn't bored at all, and frequently transfixed. Bausch's choreography is daring and exciting, and Wenders does everything he can to make this film a visual feast.

This is not a concert film. The dances are performed for the camera, not an audience. Therefore, the performances are in a variety of places, not just a stage. They are outside on the grass, beside a swimming pool, in a factory, in a gravel pit, and on a commuter train. A few of them are on a stage, performed as they were in a theater, such as the opening, Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, which is done a stage covered with dirt, or Full Moon, on a stage covered with water.

Bausch died of cancer shortly after the film began production. Wenders wanted to shut it down, but the members of her company convinced him to make it, and thus it is something of a eulogy. Each dancer speaks a little about her, and then has a moment of their own. Then there are larger group performances, such as those I mentioned and another, Cafe Muller, which is in a room full of chairs. A dancer has her eyes closed, and a man clears the chairs out the way for her as she moves around the room. This may sound nutty, but it's very compelling.

In addition to classical giants like Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky, the music is all over the map, from Louis Armstrong to electronic. I would love to see more films like this--dance films that are designed for cinema, not for the theater. It stretches the definition of what "documentary" is, and also opens an artistic world for those of us who otherwise would have never heard of Pina Bausch.