PINA

After long being associated with the Hollywood gala, it seems 3D is now saddling up to the art house wagon, gleefully whinnying as scores of bookish types swap their specs for 3D glasses.

After Werner Hezog's mesmeric Cave of Forgotten Dreams, fellow German Wim Wenders - cut from a completely different cloth - saunters into our screens with Pina; a documentary in the loosest sense of the word that follows the dance troupe of the late choreographer Pina Bausch.

The movie is series of dance sequences - some set within the tradtional boundaries of rehearsal spaces and theatrical stages but others which take us to swimming pools, motorways and lakes.

These are meshed with meditations from the dancers themselves on their former inspirational guide, trying to tease the unsayable from them; "Words can't do more than just evoke things - that's where dance comes in," Pina tells us near the start.

And the dance is stunning. A young woman repeatedly tries to through herself into the arms of a lover in a cafe, a man joyously strides through the rain and a mechanistic creature boards an elevated train.

Reproducing sequences choreographed by Bausch herself, the troupe give us tremendously humanistic pieces, playing on themes of balance, emotion and the dichotomy between freedom and restriction.

The three-dimensions are utilised strongly with figures close to us stark against a smorgasborg of backdrops. The human body - exemplified by flailing arms and spinning legs - zips off the screen.

Wenders' muses for his 3D were worryingly the baggy Avatar (which the German describes as a "masterpiece") and the self-absorbed U2: 3D. Thankfully this is very much more in the vein of the terrific Streetdance 3D and there may even be distant echoes of Powell and Pressburger's Red Shoes.

However the film does little to initiate us into who Pina was and apart from a few shots of her taking rehearsals early on, we never see her process, only the - admittedly - brilliant results.

Wenders never wanted this to be a traditional docu-approach with talking heads and excessive narration but while the varying sequences whirl us into a world of feeling and fabulous movement, you long for more context and probing into the tale of the titular matriach.

One expects from the director - who brought us such luminous pieces as Paris, Texas and Wings of Desire - the ethereal quality that Pina has but those films also came with intensely moving portraits of individuals which a strangely absent here.

That said, this heady, handsome movie is a sight to behold and well worth seeing in its current 3D format.