1983 ‘Un jour Pina a demandé...’ Directed by Chantal Akerman
Chantal Akerman followed famous Choreographer Pina Bausch and her company of dancers, The Tanzteater Wuppertal, for five weeks while they were on tour in Germany, Italy and France. Her objective was to capture Pina Bausch's unparalleled art not only on stage by behind the scenes.
Film #37 among my 52 Films by Women 2016
Best known for her hyper-realism and documentaries, Belgian director Chantal Akerman attaches herself to 40-year-old German choreographer Pina Bausch and her Wuppertal-based dance company, taking us on "a journey through her world, through her unwavering quest for love." Over the course of a five-week European tour, we get to see not only the expected rehearsals, performances and personal interviews with troupe members, but also private moments that cameras rarely glimpse.
Modern dance defies definition, of course. It is meant to be experienced, and Akerman does a good job of letting the dancers tell their story, not trying to narrate, explain or interpret. Instead, she shows us what's there and leaves the rest to be filled in by our own imaginations and emotions. I don't pretend to have understood a lot of the routines. I liked some better than others, and I suppose that will be true for all viewers.
At commencement, I turned my head back & saw Johanna two rows behind me, her face floating in the sea of red & black, wearing a pained look that doubled as a question. Her eyes eventually caught mine & she took it upon herself to mouth the words of the question that had been on her face. Though none of these words registered with me, I know, (or hope) that she was asking about how time passes. I began to sign to her, “We wait. & nothing.” She nodded in understandment before disappearing into the crowd.
Akerman, like Bausch, turns every little movement into a dance. Bausch's work here is remarkable - hilarious and ridiculous, though that humor doesn't negate the very touching, tragic emotional appeals at the base of everything we see. Akerman both follows Bausch's lead and takes it further, creating a film that slowly reveals itself to be almost instructional: Bausch's greatest appeal, for Akerman, seems to be a re-orientation towards the world more broadly, ie offstage. By crafting observed movement into spectacle, Bausch, and Akerman, also show the possibility for finding dance, and beauty, and hilarity, in a man brushing his hair, in a cluster of people putting on makeup or sitting alongside each other quietly. How goddamn delightful this movie is.
Masterpiece. Completely enthralling and the rare documentary on an artist that represents a perfect marriage between filmmaker and subject.
A nice survey of Pina's work that gets elevated by Akerman's keen choice to place herself in the narrative, creating a really interesting dialogue between herself and Bausch and her dancers, prompting questions about the authorship of the performer. Perhaps the only thing to really take issue with is the film's brevity and sort of abrupt ending, but, you know what, I can dig a short Akerman.
Documentary where Akerman follows Pina Bausch and her troupe as they rehearse and perform. With sparse interviews, the bulk of the film is made up of fragments of dances and movement that are fascinating to watch.
At commencement, I turned my head back & saw Johanna two rows behind me, her face floating in the sea of red & black, wearing a pained look that doubled as a question. Her eyes eventually caught mine & she took it upon herself to mouth the words of the question that had been on her face. Though none of these words registered with me, I know, (or hope) that she was asking about how time passes. I began to sign to her, “We wait. & nothing.” She nodded in understandment before disappearing into the crowd.
Having just watched Wim Wenders's Pina and having a few complaints about the format (too many interviews in a film about the language of dance), I was interested to see Chantal Akerman's take on the choreography. I thought Akerman's style both in fiction and documentary might be more appropriate since she likes to observe. Take Hotel Montery for example. There is nothing but the quiet surveillance of the hotel. That film was a bit TOO observational for me, but I figured that style would be successful here. Or at least we might get a New from Home style with the dialogue over the dancing rather than cutting away from it.
No such luck. Much like Wenders's film, Akerman's cuts away…
A perfect companion piece to Toute une nuit. And perhaps just as good. (Perhaps better?) Is there a single moment of screen time without something incredible happening? Probably Akerman's most underrated film.
As bodies ran across the stage in powerful expressions of emotion and clever twistings of human activity, I felt less caught up in the brilliance of Pina Bausch's work—though I could certainly appreciate it—and more interested in the Brechtian remove that Chantal Akerman's film uses to depict it. Un jour Pina a demandé is less a film about becoming swept up in Pina's work and more one about understanding it, comprehending what makes Pina such a talented artist and gaining insight into her relationship with her dancers and with her spectators. The performers look at Pina as an idol, seemingly blindly following what she tells them. Offstage they are ordinary men and women with lives and voices, but onstage they…
It's definitely no Pina, but that comparison really isn't the point. It's nice to see performances from a totally different era, and from a decidedly less memorial point of view. My only real complaint is that everything is so fractured that it's hard to really feel like you're watching any of the performances. It's a bit too focused on tiny parts of larger things.
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