Holy Pina!

We saw the new film, "Holy Motors" by Leos Carax and a dance piece by Pina Bausch over the weekend.  "Holy Motors" is outrageous and audacious, a bizarre dream-like sequence of events where you can never be sure what will happen next.  A moment of pathos can be followed by something completely ridiculous that undermines the whole thing.    When we saw Pina Bausch's last work, we were immediately struck by the resemblance to "Holy Motors".  Much of Bausch's earlier work featured dance within a sequence of improbable stage events, from dancers serving tea to the audience, to dancers acting like little children, or engaging in repetitive activities.  This last work, though, was disappointing.  All of the trademarks of her work were there, but there were far too many solo dances, only a few of which were really exciting.   Also, I find her choices of music to be much less interesting than in the past.  Earlier works included bits of classical music, old sentimental ballad recordings, and all kinds of things.   This last work has some nice Chilean music, but far too much generic electronic-ethno-dance type music (whatever that is..)

One shot from Holy Motors.