Movies Reviews

Cave of Forgotten Dreams – Movie Review

By Ron Wilkinson May 12, 2011, 0:07 GMT

Werner Herzog gains exclusive access to film inside the Chauvet caves of Southern France, capturing the oldest known pictorial creations of humankind in their astonishing natural setting. ...more

Cave of Forgotten Dreams transcends all conventional applications of 3-D filming and projection to record the oldest show on earth.

Few directors can claim diversity in their body of work approaching that of Werner Herzog. Among the few who could make such a claim there are none so spectacularly talented. He is more than talented; he is as obsessed with his film making as his nemesis and finest star Klaus Kinsky. They were two of a kind although neither would admit it.

Having triumphed in documentary with the outlandish “Grizzly Man” and the riveting semi-doc “Rescue Dawn,” Herzog goes on to make a more conventional documentary in the spectacular “Cave of Forgotten Dreams.”

Although the picture is conventional in its subject matter it is hardly conventional in its filming technique. It is done entirely in state of the art 3-D.

At first blush, the application of 3-D to planar art seems like a waste of technology, at best, and, at worst an outright perversion of special effects. However anyone who knows Herzog’s work knows better. He did this for a reason. When the film is seen in person, with those clunky 3-D glasses on (ours were battery powered and cost $100 each), the viewer knows the reason.

The fact is there is nothing in these cave paintings that is flat. Everyone is on an undulating surface of the most complex texture. Bulges in walls are used in conjunction with necks on animals. They seem to leap out of the ends of the jagged edges of the rocks. Herzog uses the 3-D medium to bring out the topographical beauty of these works, an accidental miracle resulting from the dearth of flat surfaces in prehistoric times.

The art includes remarkable scenes of animals singly and in groups, stationary and in motion. There are scenes of combat amongst mammoths and ice age lions that stir the imagination at a deeply sub-conscious level. In fact, these caves bring back dreams long since forgotten.

Consider what it must have meant to a scrawny human armed with a club to view a fight between two mammoths larger than elephants and sporting tasks 16 feet long. A human caught near such a fight would be thankful for his or her life. These are the oldest known depictions of people and animals by human beings. Many contain overt or suggested religious messages.

The film includes interviews with some of the top archeologists in the world and is pulled together by the inimitable narration of Herzog along with Charles Fathy. After seeing this film the average viewer will still not believe their eyes, it is simply too fantastic, but further research into the files and lists of dozens of world-renowned archeologists who have studied the site will confirm that the site and the history behind are true.

The cave now is as solidly protected as Fort Knox, so concerned are the world’s leading archeologists that the treasures therein will be affected by the slightest amount of fresh air or the reflection of even an invisible level of sunlight. The reason the art survived was its hermetic and lightproof seal from the outside world. It existed in the ultimate fall-out shelter.

The extra plus for the 3-D visual freaks is the exceptional beauty of the caves themselves, beyond the priceless art they hold. The caverns are covered literally head to toe with stalagmites and stalactites of every description, including some of a size, shape and beauty never before seen on screen or even in dreams. This could be the film that inspires a new generation of cave explorers, if not outright cave dwellers.

There is more to this film than the beauty of the art and amazing skill and talent of Neanderthal humans. The age of the location alone is both stirring and scary. The film follows Herzog’s expedition into the Chauvet Cave in France, covered by countless tons of rock for twenty four to thirty two thousand years after a landslide smothered the entrance.

In recent millennia shifts in the rock opened a crevice large enough to admit an exceptionally motivated spelunker into the tomb-like chambers. The simple act of entering into a space that has been largely unchanged for thirty thousand years is awe-inspiring.

It is lucky for us they did not have nuclear power in those days. If it were a burial place for transuranic plutonium 239 it would barely be past its half-life of 24,000 years and still packing a deadly punch of alpha particles.

On the other hand, it would be a gold mine for someone looking for nuclear weapons material. However, such a scenario is mere speculation.

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Documentary (in 3D) Featuring Narration by Charles Fathy and Werner Herzog 
Directed and Written by: Werner Herzog
Release Date: April 29, 2011
MPAA: Not Rated
Runtime: 99 minutes
Country: France / Canada / USA / UK / Germany
Language: English / French / German
Color: Color (3-D)