The film presents extracts from some of the most noted dance pieces by Pina Bausch in the Tanztheater style of which Bausch was a leading exponent. The extracts are from four pieces: Le sacre du printemps, Café Müller, Kontakthof, and Vollmond. These are complemented with interviews and further dance choreographies, which were shot in and around Wuppertal, Germany; the film includes scenes showing the Wuppertal Schwebebahn, an elevated railway, and some dance sequences take place inside its carriages. In the first piece, Le sacre du printemps , the dancers of the Tanztheater Wuppertal, separated into male and female groups, move about a stage covered by a thick layer of peat. The following section, Café Müller, portrays a café Pina often visited when she was a child. In a simple setting consisting of some tables and chairs and doors, a small woman dressed in white is entering the café. Two more women, one of whom is obviously blind, appear. They hesitate to step further, as the tables and chairs are obstructing their way. Two men come around and try to remove these barriers. Eventually the blind woman and one of the men stand face to face. The second woman wraps her arms around the other men, but she slips. This part repeats and seems to remain in a loop. The next piece, Kontakthof, was performed multiple times for Wenders' cameras, with groups of different generations: teenagers, middle-aged dancers, and dancers over 65. Bausch had choreographed these three variants as Kontakthof – Mit Teenagern ab 14, Kontakthof, and Kontakthof – Mit Damen und Herren ab 65. The film edits these performances into one, cutting between different performers to highlight their different abilities. In the final piece, Vollmond , the stage is flooded. The scenery consists of one large rock and some chairs. At the end of the film, the actors face the audience on a small path with a brown coal mining region in the background to an open end.
Reception
Critical response
Reviews of the film were overwhelmingly positive. On Rotten Tomatoes it has an approval rating of 95%. The site's critical consensus called it "an immersive, gorgeously shot tribute to the people who express life through movement." Roger Ebert gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars. A. O. Scott of the New York Times was enthusiastic, saying "Choreography is a notoriously perishable art. Dances often struggle to outlive their creators. And “Pina” is, above all, an act of preservation, a memorial that is also a defiance of mortality — completely alive in every dimension." Kimberley Jones of the Austin Chronicle praised the "utterly transfixing, exhilarating spectacle of bodies in motion."
