Cast: Pina Bausch, Regina Advento, Malou Airaudo
Director: Wim Wenders
Ratings: 4.5/5
Her life, her dance- an extravaganza, a celebration!
By Priyanka Ketkar
A sculptor's work is immortalized through his sculptures, a painter's through his paintings; a writer's through books and a singer's through his recordings. One can probably shoot a dancer's dance moves and say it is immortalized but what PINA does to Pina Bausch and her memory is far more than immortalizing. Wim Wenders not only immortalizes but also celebrates the dance and life of Pina Bausch.
Story? Documentary? Biopic? Nope. None of those. PINA is a uniquely made film. A film on dance and that too in 3D is a never-seen-before kind of a movie. And trust me it's a beautiful experience. Although the 3D part of the movie subsides later into the movie, in the beginning, there are some very beautiful shots in 3D like the one with the thin-layered, translucent curtain. Wim Wenders started shooting the movie along with Pina Bausch but sadly she passed away while the shooting was on, in 2009. Wim Wenders had lost all his desire to shoot further but then he decided to make the film as a tribute to Pina Bausch.
The movie takes us through various dance forms and choreographies by Pina Bausch, performed by her students from all over the world. With as little as 5-6 dialogues, the dancers convey so much through their expressions and their dance that you are thirsty to know more about the dances. For all those dancers out there, they will feel jealous that they never got a chance to train under Pina while the non-dancers will regret they don't understand the dance that well. But the beauty of PINA is that you can interpret the dances the way you understand them and still they make complete sense and are visually enthralling.
I saw the movie at the Mumbai Film Festival last year. As many as 500 people were waiting in a queue outside the theatre for almost 3 hours in the hope of getting a seat inside. So basically, for a movie with the duration of 2 hours, we waited for three hours but trust me the wait was worth everything.
In PINA, you will not come to know about her life and her upbringing, but you will come to know about the "real life" of PINA BAUSCH and that is DANCE. So if you are looking for a typical film with antagonist-protagonist, a beginning-middle & and end and basically a film with a story, you will be disappointed.
For everyone else who are up for an experiment; sing along the music, sway along with the dancers, and get ready for an enticing journey of Dance- like never before.