"A must-see."
"Thrilling and revelatory."
"Beguiling magic."
"Wim Wenders and Pina Bausch…a perfect match."
"Beautiful and moving."
"Magnificent."
"A thrilling piece of cinema. Five stars."
"Eloquent and exhilarating."
Nick James, Editor of Sight & Sound reviewed the best of the Berlin Film
Festival in The Observer, describing PINA as one of a few "outstanding films".
"Pina, Wim Wenders's 3D tribute to the late choreographer-dancer Pina Bausch,
for instance, was thrilling and revelatory. As a spectator, to be positioned by the
camera above, beside and amid the dancers of Bausch's Wuppertal troupe is not
unlike floating bodiless through more solid phantoms. All of Bausch's best-known
pieces are present: her interpretation of Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring", in
which feral single-sex gangs stomp on a layer of brown earth, or her "Café Müller",
where female dancers staggering about with closed eyes have faith that male
partners will remove chairs from their path. Wenders sets several dances – and
purists may baulk at this – in spectacular outdoor locations; for me the experience
was nothing but uplifting."
"This tribute to the amazing German-born dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch
is the major homegrown triumph of the [Berlin Film] festival. It's also one of the first
non-Hollywood films to exploit the possibilities of 3D in a rigorous and progressive
way.
Staging four of the late Bausch's most celebrated works with key members of her
company, Wenders has some marvellously inventive visual strategies up his sleeve:
diaphanous drapes, for instance, layer the image and create extra spaces for the
performers to occupy. The 3D allows foreground and background choreography to
interact and weave a textured, beguiling magic."
"The 3D in Pina is used in [equally] magical fashion. As Wenders films some of
Bausch's most celebrated productions, mounted by the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina
Bausch ensemble, he is able to give his images an extraordinary depth of focus.
Dancers float in front of us, or race out of the shadows. A feature doc about an
avant-garde German choreographer who died two years ago doesn't seem like
a commercial proposition. However, fans of Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan
should relish Pina. Bausch's productions were characterised by the same intensity,
violence and eroticism that made Aronofsky's film so startling."
"This collaborative, poetic documentary explores the work of experimental
dance pioneer Pina Bausch, who died in 2009. It's both a tribute to an artist
and a celebration of an art form. Wenders shoots the members of Bausch's
long-established company performing her most significant pieces both in a
thatre environment and outdoors in unusual locations, from the inside of a
train to the edge of a quarry. The camerwork is as sublime as the performances.
It's a beautiful and moving film."
"On Sunday, 3-D grew up and became a sophisticated medium as Wim
Wenders presented the premiere of his ground-breaking film of Pina Bausch's
modern dance troupe. Pina brought the festival audience an experience beyond
live stage performance, as dancers launched themselves out of the screen and
we saw their emotions, sweat and sinews with no distance between entertainer
and the entertained…The film is incredibly moving, and you are barely aware
of Wenders's clever cuts that allow dancers to age, change and disappear like
magic."
"It would be hard to find a more perfect match than Wim Wenders and Pina
Bausch: two German artists who have left their mark on modern filmmaking and
choreography to the point of becoming icons of their art. In his 3D dance film Pina,
Wenders pays homage to the founder of the Tanztheater Wuppertal, who in 2009
departed to "dance on the clouds." The film, which was to have been a collaborative
effort between the two long-time friends, is a must for dance buffs everywhere, who
will lose themselves in her strange, hypnotic numbers."
"Offering further proof that the latest 3D technology is good for a lot more than just
lunging knives and fantastical storylines, Wim Wenders' dance docu "Pina" reps
multidimensional entertainment that will send culture vultures swooning."
"Billed as "the world's first 3-D arthouse film", Wim Wenders' tribute to the late
German choreographer Pina Bausch proves that 3-D and contemporary dance are
made for each other. The stereography looks great, and makes an eloquent and
exhilarating case for extending the remit of the 3-D feature beyond animation and
action blockbusters.
Wenders' film also reminds us just how radical and viscerally dramatic Bausch's
choreographies are."
