Pina

I've been volunteering at AFI Fest this year* and they're really nice to volunteers, ticket-wise, so I got to see a movie tonight that I'd been extremely excited about - Wim Wenders's Pina, a 3D dance film about the late choreographer. When the credits rolled at the end of the movie, everyone in the room gave a standing ovation. Wim Wenders walked out to the front and said, with his calm German understatement, "Thank you so much." Someone in the audience yelled out, "NO! Thank YOU so much!!!"

My sentiments exactly. During the Q & A afterwards he said that he had never really had much of a taste for dance until he saw one of Pina Bausch's pieces, sitting at the edge of his seat in Venice in tears. Well, that's pretty much how I felt throughout the whole film. Like something in my mind clicked finally, and I suddenly got dance more than I ever had before, how it works, how it constructs its meanings. At least this kind of dance. Maybe because there was something very theatrical about it; there's a piece that seems directly out of Ionesco. But more emotional.

Go see it as soon as you can. Go! Now!! And if I can't convince you, the trailer has to - but imagine it in (quite stunning) 3D.



* I've spent all weekend holding doors open for famous directors. Living the dream, guys, the human door-stopping dream. Also tomorrow I'm going to see Michael Fassbender in the flesh. The beautiful, beautiful flesh.