Wim Wenders' documentary Pina left me astounded. I was left bathed with delight from beginning to end. Wim Wenders left no stone unturned, making this documentary a circular experience. This is what a documentary made with love looks like.
I've got two things to mention that made the experience emotionally enriching.
Aesthetically 3D technology was used in such a way to simulate the experience of a live dance performance in the theatre. 3D was an integral part of the treatment of the story, making it visually engaging in a near realistic way.
This realistic experience was accentuated by the underlying emotional journey of Pina Bausch's legendary life and labour of love as a dancer and choreographer, projected onto me in the audience. In just 100 minutes, I experienced delight, sorrow, happiness, ecstasy, the pain of death, loss and love.
It was a 100 percent emotional journey.
I write about documentaries.
Saturday, 23 April 2011
Monday, 11 April 2011
The Sandwich - Egyptian Ethnographic Documentary
Watching Ateyyat El Abnoudy's documentary from 1975, The Sandwich, was a 12 minute ethnographic delight. I was delighted to see a part of Egyptian rural life, that had a romantic notion of the past to it, and that was far removed from Cairo's modern metropolitan life that I had grown up with. I wondered if things were still the same, in that part of rural Egypt.
I decided to dedicate this post to a documentary from a past era, as I find it both necessary and inspiring to watch classics, like The Sandwich. Egyptian documentaries are difficult to get hold of. It sometimes seems like trying to find a pin in a haystack, that I was thrilled to have attended a whole evening of Egyptian documentaries and art films, during the Egypt in Focus event, hosted by Land in Focus.
The Sandwich documents the slow paced life of a rural village in Egypt, starting off with a classic bread-making sequence, which was one of my favourite scenes. I could have indulged in that scene for a bit longer.
The second sequence that I enjoyed watching was of a goat boy, who was in the process of milking a goat, having offered it a piece of bread from the earlier scene. The goat boy then poured the milk into his piece of bread, creating a sandwich, as the title of the film goes.
The third sequence I liked was that of the train arriving, and the village children running to the crossing, excited by its arrival. It portrayed a moment of joyful simplicity of life.
I decided to dedicate this post to a documentary from a past era, as I find it both necessary and inspiring to watch classics, like The Sandwich. Egyptian documentaries are difficult to get hold of. It sometimes seems like trying to find a pin in a haystack, that I was thrilled to have attended a whole evening of Egyptian documentaries and art films, during the Egypt in Focus event, hosted by Land in Focus.
The Sandwich documents the slow paced life of a rural village in Egypt, starting off with a classic bread-making sequence, which was one of my favourite scenes. I could have indulged in that scene for a bit longer.
The second sequence that I enjoyed watching was of a goat boy, who was in the process of milking a goat, having offered it a piece of bread from the earlier scene. The goat boy then poured the milk into his piece of bread, creating a sandwich, as the title of the film goes.
The third sequence I liked was that of the train arriving, and the village children running to the crossing, excited by its arrival. It portrayed a moment of joyful simplicity of life.
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