This film did not really click with me. The dance style is like a pending apocalypse. It becomes very dreary sometimes. One wants to yell "Lighten up – have a drink!" Some excerpts brought to mind Monty Python – a woman dancing on a bench in a stream (And now for Something Completely....).There is hardly any exuberance and joy expressed in the dance sequences. Even when the music is bubbly, the dancers seem to have a forced smile.
Perhaps it was too avant garde for my taste as well – in one arrangement a dancer is shoveling dirt unto another dancer, in another a dancer performing by a public pool. It all comes off as not only pretentious – but cold and icy. Many of the dancers expostulate rapturously on Pina – but I also got the feeling of someone who was not communicating effectively and hard to reach. Overall I was not impressed. Some of the musical pieces were interesting (The Rite of Spring by Stravinski), but the choreography overwhelmed the rigid dancing.
Perhaps it was too avant garde for my taste as well – in one arrangement a dancer is shoveling dirt unto another dancer, in another a dancer performing by a public pool. It all comes off as not only pretentious – but cold and icy. Many of the dancers expostulate rapturously on Pina – but I also got the feeling of someone who was not communicating effectively and hard to reach. Overall I was not impressed. Some of the musical pieces were interesting (The Rite of Spring by Stravinski), but the choreography overwhelmed the rigid dancing.