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Film REVIEWS
Interview
DOCUMENTARY/DANCE PINA (U) 103min ●●●●●
Filmmaker Wim Wenders had a big problem: in 2009 his long-time friend and colleague Pina Bausch died suddenly, just days before they were to begin the rehearsal shoot for a new 3D film about her and the work she’d been making for 35 years in the German industrial town of Wuppertal. As the high priestess of ‘Tanztheater’, Bausch was intensely revered and hugely influential on dance and performance globally. After a suitable period of mourning, and a rethink, Wenders decided to go ahead with the project. The result is this technically groundbreaking 3D art-house film about a groundbreaking artist, a near- masterpiece about someone who knew how to make masterpieces. Subtitled Dance, dance, otherwise we are lost (advice that Bausch herself once uttered), Pina is rooted in newly filmed excerpts from four of her productions: the thrillingly elemental Rite of
Spring, the bleak Café Müller, three multi- generational stagings of the collective memory piece Kontakthof and the more recently created, lighter-hearted Vollmond. Interspersed with the theatrical performance footage are interviews with Bausch’s dancers in which we hear their words as they gaze at the camera, solos and duets of them dancing in outdoor locations ranging from the city’s streets to the surrounding countryside, plus archival footage of the wraith- like genius herself.
Wenders has fashioned a beautifully assembled tribute to her: unsentimental, insightful and ravishing to look at. You needn’t be a ready-made acolyte of Bausch’s brand of agony and ecstasy to derive a deep pleasure from it. Her abiding interest was in how human beings move and, more importantly, behave towards each other. On that fundamental level Pina can potentially offer something valuable to everyone. (Donald Hutera) ■ GFT, Glasgow from Fri 22–Thu 28 Apr; Filmhouse, Edinburgh from Fri 22 Apr–Thu 5 May.
COMEDY KILLING BONO (15) 113min ●●●●●
Killing Bono – it’s probably a thought more than a few have entertained over the years. Whether Neil McCormick ever did is another matter. Author of the exuberant rock memoir I Was Bono’s Doppelgänger, aspiring musician McCormick grew up in Ireland in the shadow of schoolmates Paul Hewson and Dave Evans – aka U2’s Bono and The Edge. You can probably already see where this is going: U2 go on to become the biggest rock group of the planet, while McCormick (Ben Barnes) and his brother Ivan (Misfits’ Robert Sheehan) struggle to get a record deal in both Dublin and London. It doesn’t help that Bono (an uncanny Martin McCann) swings by occasionally to offer some sage advice.
Despite veteran scribes Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais behind the script, director Nick Hamm (The Hole) never strikes the right tone. The McCormicks’ encounter guns and gangs, lending the film an Ealing Comedy flavour without the laughs. As the last film made by Pete Postlethwaite it’s hardly a fitting tribute. (James Mottram) ■ General release from Fri 1 April.
COLD FEET Legendary Polish director, writer and actor Jerzy Skolimowski talks about how he came to make his new film with Vincent Gallo
‘I live in a remote area of the Masurian forest in Poland and one night I was driving back home on a very slippery road. My car skidded and I very nearly went over the edge, which would have killed me. I felt a real shock and I realised I was near this secret military airport, from which CIA planes land with prisoners they have taken in the Middle East.
‘I wondered what would happen if a vehicle in a military convoy carrying prisoners lost control on this road.
‘I had my story for the film. It would be about a man in chains, who runs away barefoot through the snow into the wild forest. I would leave the question of whether he is guilty or innocent open and ambiguous. The political aspects of the situation didn’t interest me: to me politics is a dirty game and I don’t want to voice my opinions. What is important is that the man who runs away is returning to the state of a wild animal, who has to kill in order to survive. Within two hours I sketched an outline, and it took ten days for my wife Eva [Piaskowska] and myself to finish the script.
‘I’ve known Vincent Gallo socially for several years, since we acted on a film together, LA Without a Map. There’s an animalistic quality to his movements, which I thought would be perfect for the role of the fugitive, who doesn’t speak. I gave him the script at Cannes in 2009, and within 24 hours he called to say that he had to do it. He insisted he could cope with the cold, because he’d grown up in Buffalo, New York.
‘I had wanted to film Essential Killing in the area around my house, like I had for my last film Four Nights with Anna. I like sleeping in my own bed and not having to travel hours to locations. But we couldn’t guarantee snow in Poland, so we ended up shooting in Norway.’ (Interview by Tom Dawson) ■ Essential Killing, GFT, Glasgow from Fri 1–Sat 9 Apr; Filmhouse, Edinburgh from Fri 29 Apr–Thu 5 May.
31 Mar–28 Apr 2011 THE LIST 63