Friday, September 23, 2011

NYFF 2011: Wim Wenders' Pina

Pina, Wim Wenders' new dance movie-cum-documentary on choreography legend Pina Bausch, begs the question, has 3D taken over so greatly that now even European art films are getting the extra-dimensional treatment? Actually, unlike in most mainstream Hollywood fare, the technology of 3D actually accentuates Wenders' film and makes Bausch's unique dance numbers visually pop like nobody's business. Much like in fellow German Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams, it seems as if 3D has found a happy home in these European art films-cum-daring documentaries.

Originally begun in collaboration with Ms. Bausch, and turned into a labour of love of sorts after the avant-garde choreographer's untimely 2009 death, Wenders' film is quite the remarkable looking piece of work indeed. From the Brechtian set designs of Bausch's dance machinations (a roomful of empty chairs, a man-made waterfall, an empty glass house) to the smoothly played beauty of the dancers' agile, almost inhuman like bodies to the strangely alluring oddities that are interspersed throughout the film, Pina, in all its three dimensional grandeur and beautiful musicality, is an awe-inspiring work of both cinematic and choreographed art.

Now of course no image displayed here can capture the 3D look that is captured on screen (and looked upon at the NYFF screening using $100 a pair, state-of-the-art microchipped 3D glasses - and glasses that were not nearly as annoying as the typical kind are to we already bespectacled viewers), nor can it show the inherent beauty of the dance that is made to look so effortless up on the screen, but I will leave you with one anyway. As for a release date, Sundance Selects has selected a December 21st New York opening date, followed by a national rollout in January.  A full review of the film will be forthcoming right around that 12/21 release date. 

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