PINA at TIFF

The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is in full swing and like last year the festival is presenting a new 3-D feature, the third in three years.

In 2009 TIFF presented Joe Dante's family horror film The Hole. It the first 3-D film ever to play the festival. At its premiere screening the fire alarm went off and audiences missed the last 20 minutes (myself among them). It did take quite a bit of effort to clear the theatre as many audience members continued to watch the film as they were ushered out of the auditorium.

Last year TIFF screened Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams, a documentary and meditation on the oldest cave known to feature drawings and artwork on its walls. Again a screening mishap occurred as the newly inaugurated Bell Lightbox suffered a power failure mid screening and the theatre went black. The staff quickly fixed the problem and the audience was able to enjoy the entire film.

This year another German cinema master, Wim Wenders, is screening his flirtation with 3-D technology, a documentary/performance dance film entitled Pina, featuring the choreography of the late Pina Bausch. I'm unaware of any mishaps yet. The film opened on the 8th of September and will screen again on the 17th.

Wenders was in Toronto in mid June of this year, the keynote at the Toronto International Stereoscopic 3D Convention, to discuss the production of the film at length and show a few featured clips. The 3-D was spectacular, and like Herzog, Wenders managed to utilize the technology not simply as an exploitive gimmick but to further explore the film's subject, dance. By capturing Bausch's choreography in three dimensions, Wenders is better able to recreate a live performance venue and emulate the immediacy of the art form. A key discussion point during the TIS3DC came directly from Wenders talk and his belief that the stereoscopic 3D camera captured a sense of the “embodiment” of his subjects, the dancers in his film. This discovery came to Wenders late in the shooting of Pina during the filming of his “portraits” material (individual shots of the dancers looking directly into camera, which in the film are accompanied by voice-over interviews). Wenders asked the dancer on camera to turn to look into the lens as if it were their best friend. During the shooting Wenders would look down at his hand-held 3-D monitor and was struck by a sense of holding the individual in his hand. It was this sense of the 3-D image capturing the essence of a person (perhaps an element of their soul) that created a magical moment for Wenders, one that had not occurred before in the shooting of Pina.

Unfortunately I'm not in Toronto this year to see the film in its entirety, but I have a writer in the wings who has promised me a review and I plan to be posting that as soon as I can. However if anyone out there has seen the film I'd love to hear your impressions of it. Please leave a comment.