Nearly 30 of Pina's students and friends who appeared in the film made emotional and professional recollections and evaluations of Pina. Such as: "She's a painter; she sees through everything, no one has ever known me so well; overcome limitations, fragile and strong; she's like a vengeful dead, and I show her strength and loneliness; she knows our place; and Pina Working together, it always makes people feel like a spring breeze; she is not young, but she has a childlike innocence; she said 'don't forget, you have to scare me'; what responsibility do you take to dance; your weakness is also your strength; continue to look for someone something; Pina, please appear in my dreams; experiencing the feeling of weightlessness; radical adventurers, what are we waiting for, where does this desire come from.”
Interviewed by director Wim Wenders Shi said that he wanted to show the quiet side of people and the good side of people. Pina does just that.
On the whole, the essence of Pina's dance in the documentary "Pina" ("Pina") is generally reflected in the following aspects:
1. It expresses the contradiction between individual existence and collective existence.
Individuals of life are thrown into a huge mass torrent from the very beginning. In this torrent, the individual can learn, grow, mature, absorb all the power he needs, strengthen himself, and carry out various life activities; it is also in this torrent that the individual experiences the obstacles to growth, difficulties, and feels the machinery of survival. And passive, awakening the fragility and loneliness of life. While absorbing growth energy, individuals living in the midst of groups inevitably suffer from all kinds of shackles and injuries, and are deeply immersed in physical and mental pain and entanglement. In this sense, any individual who thinks and renews his words and deeds, his growth is completed in this kind of self-preservation and development, insisting on transformation, and painfully joyful. Pina's dance is a good demonstration of this form of existence between individuals and groups and the in-depth thinking about this form.
The first dance scene in the film shows the awakened life on the land of spring. Five women are lying on their backs, symbolizing the awakened and revived life. The women who stood up after awakening danced together consciously. There was only one woman, nostalgic for a red dress, but timidly afraid to wear it. More and more people join the common dance, and women who are nostalgic for the red dress have to choose to give up. Until the emergence of a group of men, the representative of another life-awakening factor, after the group dance, a man covered his body with a red dress, and then the women held up the red dress one by one and handed it to the man. , but they all retreated in fear, until the last timid but brave handed to the man, and cuddled with him, and put on a red dress. At this moment, the red dress, men and women have become a new group of symbols, a kind of existence different from other people. An individual who grew up in a group suddenly stood out from the crowd. This kind of difficulty in the individual's inner choice and the individual's sense of embarrassment and coercion in the face of the power of the group are very vivid.
There is also a scene, in an empty room with tables and chairs, in the distance is a woman in white retreating in the corner, near is a man sitting on the ground unable to pick up his lover, sitting by the table is a man wearing only in a shorts. In terms of individual existence, these people have the reality of their own existence. Or a tired and sad person, or a powerless and numb person, or a silent loner, or a damaged person covered in bruises. The third person put on clothes when the man came over. This action revealed the inner tension and isolation of the individual life, and also revealed the distance and separation between the individual life, and also represented countless individual lives. The conflict between him and me. Or it is also a true reflection of another reality: everyone lives in a given order, and they do not have the basic ability to evaluate and change whether this order is reasonable or not. People seem to have to adapt to it and not make any changes to its absurdity. This creates a contradiction that is difficult to reconcile. The individual inner desires the truth of the self, and the soul needs the consolation of true feelings, but the outer has to put on the coat of the order of survival. This is tantamount to going the opposite way and seeking fish from the edge of the wood. Pina's dance vividly reveals the truth of existence, which is frightening.
2. Revealing the contrast between inner desires and outer habits
One of the characteristics of modern social existence is that people choose a given life and survival mode voluntarily or not in order to maintain their lives, or not to maintain them. In the selection process of having to fall into some mechanical formula, the inner needs of the mind are ignored. The contrast between inner desires and outer living habits is agonizing.
In a dance scene in the film, in a room with chairs and tables, a man and a woman hug each other gently for comfort, showing exhaustion. A man walked by, looking at each other indifferently. Another man came straight over, adjusted the limbs of the two, let the man and the woman kiss, and asked the man to pick up the woman by the waist. But after he had done all this, just as he turned around, the woman fell from the man's arm. Repeated this several times, the movements became more and more rapid, but in the end it still ended with the woman falling to the ground. This choreography truly reveals the huge contradiction between the emotional needs of the sexes and the actual mode of survival in modern society. Obviously two people who need to love each other can only comfort each other with shallow emotions, but they are unable to give each other enough full love. This contradiction, along with the rapid rhythm of the dance plot, causes the viewers to be deeply touched.
Another example is the dancing woman on the train. She tried hard and hard to stand up in a ballet dance position, but every time she was about to succeed, she fell weakly. She was always out of her mind. This reflects the powerlessness and inability of people to stop what they are after in real life. Or a small wish, or a steady stream of desires. This is reminiscent of Wu Gang cutting down laurel trees in Eastern mythology, and Sisyphus pushing boulders in Western mythology. Throughout the ages, people have been unable to overcome a question: why do we live, why do we do these things over and over again, when can we do it, and how can we do it well? This contradiction between internal needs and external existence turns into thinking about the ultimate purpose of existence. The ideological connotation is quite powerful. The woman repeats this series of actions lonely and expressionless in the dark setting, which also symbolizes the silence and loneliness of the individual existence of life, while the driver on the small train is just driving his car, also expressionless The repetitive actions of facing the woman show the isolation and helplessness between the equally lonely and silent individuals in the real society.
3. Showing the fragility and struggle of women, the lack of spiritual care, the loneliness in the strong,
no matter how long the feminist movement has been carried out and how far it has developed, it is undeniable that the world is still a patriarchal society today. From the moment of qualitative change in the mode of production and distribution, the concept of gender has been irreversibly far away from equality. When equality has only become a symbol of struggle and commitment, women's self-existence has become the greatest luxury and greatest difficulty in modern society.
There is more than one scene in "Pina", which shows the strong self-consciousness of women's survival, and the fragility and loneliness shown in the process.
In addition to the two examples cited above, there are also several scenes, such as in the woods, a man and a woman walk side by side, and the woman falls straight down. The man helped her up, but before she could walk a few steps, the woman fell straight down again. Repeat this many times. This dance scene shows the reality of women's strong pursuit of autonomy in the relationship between the sexes, but sometimes powerless. The man was able to lift her body, but it seemed that she did not lift her heart; the woman fell weakly, but her posture remained upright. This kind of physical arrangement not only reflects the anxiety of women in the real society and the lack of men's inner care for women, but also reflects the inner consciousness of women still insisting on self-independence in the fragile struggle. This makes women's fragile and struggling living state even more worrying.
For example, there is a scene where a woman is standing weakly with her eyes closed, surrounded by seven or eight men, or pinching her nose, or stroking her hair, or rubbing her knees, or pulling her clothes, no One person can touch her heart. A man's actions towards this woman have no meaning other than to increase the woman's weakness and burnout. She still didn't open her eyes and showed no signs of regaining her strength. This is in contrast to the lack of attention of women in real life, and it is very real. In modern society, what women need is not only money and love words, but also inner dialogue. If there is no spiritual respect, discovery and communication, a woman with only money and entertainment, without real life, can only be powerless and tired. But do men understand this truth? Are women waiting for the awakening of men, calling them out, or asking themselves to be stronger? This is what Pina got us thinking.
In fact, if you look closely, Pina dance has a heavy focus on women. The beauty and strength of women are expressed through numerous dance scenes. The reality of loneliness and fragility about women's existence is reflected in women's powerlessness and burnout, silence, neglect and misunderstanding. It can be said that it is everywhere.
There is a group dance scene in the middle of the film. First a woman in red performed alone, then more women, then men. Finally, the women lined up against the wall and the men lined up on the opposite side. Both sides perform a series of body movements at a fast pace. But the difference is that the women stay still, while the men walk or carry chairs, approaching the women in line as the rhythm accelerates. This dance scene caused a strong visual impact and psychological tension. This shows that in real life, women, like men, are constantly busy with their own lives and work hard for their own survival, but at the same time they have to face another layer of oppression and threats from men. This stage effect created by dance pictures and sounds brings the contradiction between the sexes in real life to the extreme.
4. The nature that calls for life and the freedom
of art Any art form is essentially the same. It is to express respect for life, thinking, love and beauty, and the pursuit of truth through different artistic means. From this point of view, dance, drama, music, literature, sculpture, painting, and film are essentially the same. The essence of life and art is also the same, that is, nature and freedom. As a dancer, Pina interprets her pursuit of the nature of life and the freedom of art with extreme precision.
As can be seen from the film, dance is another form of existence of life, which is the same as writing is another form of existence of life. The dancers in the film can dance indoors, dance in the park, dance on the street; dance when they are sad, dance when they are happy, dance when they are lonely, and dance when they are struggling. Dance is everywhere, just as life is everywhere. Different dances have different movements, different plots, or stretch their limbs, or open their mouths, or ask strangers for help, or fiddle with their fingers. It symbolizes the hope of survival and the appeal of existence of the individual life. Dance is everywhere, all the time, and has various forms of expression. Just like life itself, its essence is nature.
Taking a modern city as the background, or a park with people coming and going, or a street where vehicles pass, or an inner room filled with still life, or a swimming pool, or a bus, or dancing with lovers or strangers. Dance expresses the freedom of art itself and the separation from the existing space. In the stark contrast between the dance figures and actions and the dance scenes, what we experience is the strong contradiction between the freedom of art itself and the unfreedom of artistic existence. The thinking that Pina dance gives us is not only limited to the dance itself, but also a series of survival problems of the art itself that is influenced by the dance.
Conclusion
What makes life radiant must be an eager experience; what makes art immortal must be deep thinking. And the two are unified in Pina. She blends eager experience with deep thinking to provide the audience with a fine-grained presentation.
A man shouted 123, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 here I am, and then danced enthusiastically to show his joy; a man, with his body, was striving to balance his limbs The number of sticks in the picture symbolizes the various survival relationships that people are striving to balance; the beautiful woman in the flower dress, the dress is made into a bouquet, and it is given to you, who is on camera, she loves life so much; on the bus, the woman in white stepped on it hard Wearing a white mat and making strange noises, everyone has become an alien in the eyes of others, like the horned man on the bus, maybe he knows, maybe he doesn't know, maybe others can see it, maybe others can't, in the end Is it him who has horns, or is he who has no horns? Two men lie down on the grass and spit at each other, while two men and a woman on the other side are performing a difficult dance. Art and the world may be really close neighbors; In between, or his mother, or his sister, or his lover, they watched silently, he was sweating profusely from exhaustion, maybe you also experienced this kind of relentless dedication and the loneliness of no response. ; A man, dancing, jumping to a woman, the woman remained motionless until the man kissed her, she began to kiss back, and kept kissing, maybe the people who are mechanically numb in modern society will only Respond to limited things; on a stage with reefs and seawater as the backdrop, it is raining heavily, some people are crawling in the water, some are running to the shore, some are dancing in the rain, facing the same living situation, different people are different because of their circumstances. There are indeed different attitudes and choices for different personalities and goals; the changes of individuals and groups, the changes of youth and old age, are just like the survival experience that no one can avoid in life; there is a pair of men and women by the lake, weary Yes, they carried each other; a woman was bound by a rope, and a long rope was holding her in, and she could not get rid of it, but kept trying to get rid of it. One woman was about to fall, another woman, with a shovel, shovel, shovel, shovel, shovel, shovel, shovel, and she shook down again, and the earth fell on her body, face, and skin. Buried in the earth, she will still escape little by little. Where will she go, maybe it is our question of our own destiny!
I think in the face of the colorful life and the test of life, each of us should plant a tree full of vitality in our hearts. As long as you grow into a tall tree, you will not always worry about the danger of being blown down by the wind. If you haven't found it yet, come and see "Pina", the woman in red has moved for us.
----2013/01/30 The second diary of Penghao Theater watching the movie "Pina"
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