‘From Inside Out’ Review: Wim Wenders’ 3D Doc on Peter Zumthor

There are of course many viewers out there who’re passionately devoted to James Cameron’s Avatar thrill rides alongside the big blue people of Pandora. But for arthouse viewers, few directors make the case for 3D cinema, and all that investment exhibitors and customers sunk in 3D projectors and TVs, as well as Wim Wenders.

He’s now shot four features in the format, although we can politely overlook dud drama Every Thing Will Be Fine. However, the other three — his tribute to dancer/choreographer Pina Bausch Pina, his career retrospective of artist Anselm Kiefer Anselm, and now his latest From Inside Out: The Architecture of Peter Zumthor — build a strong case for the format with their dazzling use of space, depth and bodies in motion that bring certain artforms to life in a way 2D cinema just can’t match.

Much like travelogue films from the earliest days of cinema made to show audiences wondrous exotic places like the Taj Majal or Yellowstone Park, Wenders’ 3D films offer viewers a chance to get up close and personal with art works, performances or places that most of us would likely never visit, even if travel is lot more accessible than it was for early cinema audiences. For a niche viewership, the chance to see the stuff on show here is well worth the price of admission.

Wenders’ latest contribution scratches that same itch with jaunts to 83-year-old Swiss architect Peter Zumthor’s far-flung or privately owned structures, such as his own home or the Therme Vals spa in Switzerland, the Steilneset Memorial to the Victims of the Witch Trials above the Arctic Circle in Vardo, Norway, or the Bruder Klaus Field Chapel in Wachendorf, Germany. Los Angelenos at least can easily visit one of Zumthor’s most recently completed and most complex structures, the David Geffen Galleries at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Wilshire Blvd.

Perhaps cognizant of the fact that Zumthor’s work, while full of sinuous, soaring shapes and graceful lines, is nevertheless mostly fashioned from concrete and consequently a little cold-looking, Wenders has inserted more human elements into the shoot so we see how people move around the structures and get a better sense of scale. Usually, they’re just folk wandering in and out, smiling approvingly. The silent guides include director Ava DuVernay, novelist Siri Hustvedt and dancer Aoi Yamada, but Werner Herzog, Wenders’ old comrade from the 1970s heydays of the New German Cinema, is allowed to talk a little onscreen about what he sees in LACMA, his wife Lena nodding approvingly. While the intentions may be good, these little dumbshow wanderings feel rather stiff and self-conscious.

Perhaps they’re meant to counterbalance the rather dry footage of Zumthor himself, shot over some 14 years on regular 2D stock, where he talks about aesthetics, construction and design in that airy, abstract, self-important way that architects especially excel at. At least he comes across as a nice enough fellow who was devoted to his late wife and family and who has the interests of clients top of mind, but he’s not as engaging a raconteur as Kiefer was in the last 3D art doc. There’s also less of the eccentric charm that’s to be found in Wenders’ other docs, like the bits in Pina where the dancers cavort around in scruffy parts of Wuppertal where their home Dance Theater is based.

The technical accomplishment of the 3D drone technology is some compensation, especially when it’s used to give the viewer a sense of how the buildings fit into the large landscapes surrounding them. Altogether, the package would suit exhibition in museums best, where it would feel most of a piece with more academic discourse.