Review of film: “CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS” in 3-D

2011, 04-19:

Review of film:  “CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS” in 3-D

I’ve long been fond of history and especially prehistoric times, and movies about the subjects.  I was captivated when I first heard of the discovery of prehistoric PAINTINGS in ancient caves... 

...  ALL the inhabited continents (meaning, outside of Antarctica) have seen caves discovered in which paintings have been found dating back thousands of years...  The most highly-publicized ones are in Lascaux and Altamira in southern France and Spain, which go back around 10,000 or more years...   

...  In 1994, a discovery was made of a cave near Vallon-Pont-d’Arc, France.  That cave was called CHAUVET, and its artwork (via radiocarbon dating) has shown its paintings are the OLDEST ever found, going back around 32,000 years (to the Upper Paleolithic period)...   

...  This film (partly sponsored by the HISTORY CHANNEL) concerns the Chauvet cave and how a small crew led by WERNER HERZOG was allowed to shoot a DOCUMENTARY inside the cave system... 

...  Because of damage that had been done to OTHER paintings in caves by allowing the introduction of modern air and breathing by crowds, the French government has been super-PROTECTIVE of this cave system, wanting to AVOID such contamination by severely restricting access to it (only allowing scientists in for SHORT periods, etc.)...

...  Werner was allowed to enter with filming equipment with the understanding that the time they’d be allowed inside would be severely limited.  And, as Werner comments during the film, it might well be not only the first but likely the LAST such publicly “recorded” documentation allowed to be done there...

...  During the movie, it’s explained that the original main entrance to the cave was closed-off by a LANDSLIDE around 20,000 years ago, & that’s likely one reason its contents are so perfectly PRESERVED today...

...  We meet some of the main people involved with the DISCOVERY of the cave.  They tell how they found an opening that eventually led to an “alternate” way to get INTO the cave...

...  The government built a protective metal “stairway” & “floor” into the lower depths of the cave, to preserve what was found on the floor (in the way of ancient animal BONES  and the like)...

...  Due to water that’s entered the cave system over millenniums, we see that there are fabulous stalagtites & stalagmites that have formed on the ceiling, walls and floors around the system...  Thru the efforts of Werner’s team, we also see the bones of prehistoric bones of animals such as the now-extinct CAVE BEAR (which had used their nails to scratch some of the walls, as we can see)...

...  With great detail, we view some of the incredibly sophisticated ARTWORK painted on the walls--  of lions, bears, rhinos, deer, the extinct bears, horses, etc...  There are also some PALM PRINTS of the painters themselves, & an expert points out how one had an unusually crooked little finger...

...  We see some of the marks of torches used to LIGHT the caves for the painting work (and, as I understand it, those charcoal torch remnants have themselves been radiocarbon-dated to help provide evidence of the incredible AGE of the work done there)...

...  It’s pointed out that experts feel the work in some areas was done “OVER” certain older paintings, indicating that the “newest” work was done maybe 10,000 years after the EARLIEST work in the cave...

...  Since the main entrance can be seen to have been obstructed by a landslide around 20,000 years ago, that means the work (per datings) was done 20,000 to 30,000+ years ago...

...  Werner points out what he surmises was a sort of “altar” with some bones of a LION on it...  One of his assistants shows pieces found of a wooden FLUTE found on the floor which was put together by the assistant, who even demonstrates the musical instrument by playing a little tune using the original holes in it...

...  A lady scientist points out how there’s a symbolic FEMALE shape on one of the walls.  Werner then visits people who show other similar bulbous female representations from around the same general 30,000-year-old period in Germany not far away...

... That helps show how comparable styles seem to have been fairly widespread in certain areas... There may well have been “fertility” representations inherent in the depictions...       

...  A lot of time is spent showing us the artwork in the caves, with some commentaries on how amazing it is that the work was done on generally NON-flat surfaces that used the “undulating” shapes of the walls to help give an effect of “MOVEMENT” to some of the animals (enhanced by such things as the multiple horns on the rhino below)...

...  That idea of 3-dimensional “movement” was (as Werner points out) also enhanced by the way some depictions were purposely done with “MULTIPLE” images (as shown below) ...

...  and also shown by images such as multiple legs on a bison and the like, almost giving a “proto-cinema” type of movement effect (as illustrated below)...

...  Interviews are done with some of the SCIENTISTS that have worked in the caves, to ask for explanations of things and what they “thought” about what they’ve seen & all... 

...  We’re allowed to meet and listen to JEAN CLOTTES, JEAN-MICHEL GENESTE, DOMINIQUE BAFFIER, JULIEN MONNEY, GILLES TOSELLO, MICHEL PHILIPPE, CAROLE FRITZ, MAURICE MAURIN, NICHOLAS CONARD, MARIA MALINA, WULF HEIN, DOMINIQUE BAFFIER, and the voice of interpreter CHARLES FATHY...

...  Werner beings up some “possibilities” regarding certain elements of the artwork & what some things may have “MEANT” to the original artists:  there’s speculation by him on whether there might be “RELIGIOUS” or similar “meanings” behind some of the work, such as if the animals could have been meant as some “offering” designed to improve their chances of CAPTURING such animals in the future)...

...  I personally felt the film was somewhat “distracted” by the way Werner spent time discussing possible “SPIRITUALITY” by the cave painters (seemingly based on things like the possible “altar” with the lion’s skull on it), & also by some obscure comments about albino crocodiles we’re shown which were born around a current nuclear facility not far from the Cave of Chauvet...

...  The film is FASCINATING & AWE-inspiring in many ways...  But, I would have liked more time being spent on further educational info such as more about what the painters USED for making their artwork, suppositions on the likely “world” they lived in society-wise, the exceptional sophistication of their realistic techniques, & so on...

...  Because of some periodic “repetition” in the visual scenes, plus those afore-mentioned “distractions” by Werner, I’m slightly lowering my overall rating on the movie to 8.75 out of 10 stars... 

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