Bodies in Motion: Pina and Mission Impossible

I spent hard scratch to see two films in theatres over the holidays, Pina and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. They would seem, at first, to be a pretty odd couple. They're also a pair that cost me about $35 in admission, the price of a cheap pair of pants at Old Navy, but perhaps that is a thought for another time ("Does art ever justify pantslessness???") Together, though, the blockbuster emphasizes the human body as much as the arthouse documentary on the German choreographer, both sharing a fascination with how those bodies interact with architectural space.

I can't take credit for focusing on this theme in Pina. I was too distracted by the clips of a dance featuring a hippo costume. But as my friend Richard pointed out, there was a "connection between human forms and architectural ones" running through the film. Dancers move through an empty glass building, a café with its chairs, up an escalator, and around the spare concrete room of what could be an apartment or a grain elevator. It's hard to tell just what it is, except that it's a man-made space. Sometimes it's easy to impose a traditional narrative on the movement, like, here's a couple falling in and out of love. Other times perhaps it's an abstract idea or an emotion, but trying to make narrative sense of it all feels insulting. But throughout, the body had to interact with the architecture, whether it's moving against the space or in ways the space inspires.

Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol would seem like an odd choice to continue this theme, as its budget could probably buy ten Pinas, with enough left over to clone Wim Wenders. But the highlight of the movie, and the scene that nearly justifies the absurd Imax ticket price, features the Burj Khalifa. It's the tallest building in the world, and one of its most distinctive-looking, but if you need more proof of its place in the public consciousness: It's one of the 11 buildings that make up the Lego Architecture series*. With all this cultural context, the architecture of the space the IMF team must infiltrate is already primed in the audience. And then Tom Cruise sprints across one side of the Burj, leaps, and swings back into a knocked-out window. For a few moments, it's as graceful as anything seen in Pina, the viewer reminded that collectively we can produce architecture that the individual can interact with and around, rather than push through. I was again reminded of this scene while talking with my friend**, after saying how clumsy MIGP made me feel. She pointed out that Tom Cruise and Co. were always banging into things, and for a few moments here he dangles off the edge, barely making it inside for all of his previous grace. So, in spite of Pina's sterling arthouse credentials, MIGP may just be the more interesting film when it comes to the friction people we can experience with current architectural forms- and the social structures from which they spring.

* A side note for Canadians: they're considering Moshe Safdie's Montréal landmark Habitat 67 as a future set. You can vote for it here.
** Jo, a lovely person who was at Pina too. For a sense of why she makes such a good movie watching buddy, check out her feminist critique of The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo.