La Grotte des rêves perdus

This is a truly awful mess. Harzog's reputation must have swayed many critics, preventing them, perhaps out of overawed politeness, from admitting that this is too long and too empty, and not at all helped by the director's vaporings. He wonders rhetorically, at one point, whether 'We are the crocodiles of the future gazing into the distant past' or some such nonsense. (I liked him better when he was shoving boats over mountains.) This business comes at the end, when we (for what reason?) visit a nuclear power station whose waste heat is being used (again, for what reason?) in a kind of hot house to raise crocodiles. Another more important irrelevancy is a prolonged visit with museums elsewhere in Europe; there we hear about the sort of humans who never entered our cave. There are numerous interviews with experts; they convey little except that they are quite impressed with themselves. One of them proposes that the ancient cave artists used spears made of wood with a sharp piece of bone for a point, and insist on demonstrating his ineptitude in throwing it (at nothing). Another plays 'The Star-Spangled Banner' on a bone flute. Another talks about what we can see in a specific painting--but we can't, as the camera doesn't pause for a look.

The art? It's fantastic stuff, thrillingly beautiful--and my experience of it was damaged by Herzog's refusal to recognize the fact: there isn't very much of it, and showing the same images over and over and over again seriously dilutes their impact, especially when accompanied by varying (often awful) lighting; gassy, fake-cosmic narration (what WAS Herzog smoking??); and a score that could be used as a substitute for water-boarding. All this babble and repetition is necessary because Herzog never had enough material to make into a movie. National Geographic would have done this in an hour, not 90 minutes, done it better, and not wasted any resources on 3D.

Unprecedented access? Yes! 32,000 years old? Probably! Moving and beautiful art? Yes, but so little that my wife's comment sums it up well: 'This isn't a movie. It's ten great postcards.'

Werner Herzog can do no wrong at the moment in my eyes and with this documentary about the Chauvet caves of Southern France, the oldest known artwork on the earth, he is continuing this trend. Filmed mostly on non-professional cameras due to the lack of moving room in the caves, it charts Herzog's limited access to the heavily restricted cave system that was discovered by mountaineers in 1994 and is a fascinating look at the cave drawings that are 30,000 years old. They are a amazing insight into what life was like then for humans as they are quite detailed in the types of animals roaming (lions, woolly rhinos, mammoth and buffalo, remember that this is France!) and the drawings themselves are of amazing quality and have a strange animated feel to them in the way they are drawn. With the restrictions put in place he is quite limited in where he can go and how much time he has but he has managed to capture the feel of the cave well with only torches and fairly basic cameras and i'm sure if saw in 3d as intended (damn my local cinema!), it would make it a even better experience. What the rest of the film entails is Herzog interviewing the many (sometimes unintentionally hilarious) people involved from historians, artists, perfume smeller's and archaeologists and him doing his unique and often brilliantly blunt narrating over all of this. Then comes the albino crocodiles in a artificial tropical enclosure at the end that have some sort of radiation mutation from a close by nuclear generator and you have another amazing film from the main man, Werner Herzog.

The paintings on the walls of the Chauvet Cave in southern France are what makes this film interesting. This cave was discovered only in 1994 and the paintings are dated to about 30,000 years ago. Not shown are the early paintings in the Lascaux Cave (also in southern France) discovered in 1940. The paintings in the Chauvet Cave predate those in the Lascaux by about 10,000 years. Lessons were learned from the Lascaux cave about how allowing lighting and large numbers of human visitors changed the cave climate, causing significant problems like lichens, mold, and fungus blemishes on the walls. Lessons learned from the Lascaux cave have been applied to the Chauvet Cave resulting in severely limited access and the use of special portable battery-powered lighting. Human traffic in Chauvet is restricted to a series of metal walkways.

While it is admirable that a high level of care is being taken to preserve the Chauvet Cave, it is unfortunate that so few people can have the privilege of seeing the original artwork. So, we can be thankful that this film offers a wide audience the opportunity to see the treasures of the cave. Given all the restrictions Herzog must have been persistent in his being allowed into the cave with a small crew in order to film the paintings and other items of interest.

In general I have little use for 3D, but it is of value in viewing the paintings, since the contours of the walls play a role in the effect the paintings create. However, I am not sure that viewing in 2D would not be almost as impressive. One can only stand in awe of the beauty of the artwork. I am sure that one thing that fascinated Herzog was evidence of great artistry dating back to such an early time, indicating that such an impulse has been in the history of man for a long time. It's in our DNA.

Outside of the filming of the interior of the cave, I found the 3D effects to be quite distracting. Camera movement often resulted in visual artifacts. I can understand that the lighting could be a bit dark in the interior of the cave, but even the scenes filmed outside the cave seemed dark. This may have been a projection problem in the theater I went to, but I came away with eyestrain and the conviction that 3D is more of a gimmick than an innovation.

I wish there had been some discussion of how the paintings might have been done, no matter how speculative. There was not much pigmentation in the painting, but there was some. What was used for the paint? It looked like mostly charcoal, but there was no evidence of fires having existed in the cave. Was the charcoal brought in from exterior fires? What was the means of application? Interesting that there were no human remains in the cave; wonder why that was? Herzog seems happy to simply dwell on the mystery, but I think it would have been fun to hear speculations from experts on details.

The elements of the movie outside the filming of the paintings I did not find added much. A lot of it struck me as filler so that this could be made into a feature length film. In particular the "postscript" filmed in an interior biosphere that attached some meaning to albino alligators left me totally perplexed and wondering if a segment from some other movie had been spliced in.

I found the musical accompaniment added to the appreciation of the mystery of the paintings.

An introduction followed by a tour of the paintings would have had more of an impact on me.

I've had really high hopes for 3D since Avatar impressed me last year but have only ever been disappointed since. All this retro fitting, remakes and flickering action sequences has really started to bug me. So, when a few months back I heard Herzog was working on a 3D documentary film, I couldn't help but grin. Finally, I thought, a 3D film that isn't going to be a bloated blockbuster. This films subject The Chauvet Cave in southern France was only discovered in 1994. It contains perhaps the most extraordinary array of cave paintings dated from between 23,000 to 30,000 years ago as well as extraordinary calcite formations, stalagmites/stalactites and ancient bones of creatures long migrated from the continent. The cave was apparently sealed by a landslide many millennia ago which has preserved everything perfectly. It's really something special to see and the sense of great privilege is conveyed by Werner early on in his very proud introduction. He is the only filmmaker to ever have been allowed access to the cave and throughout I couldn't help picturing everyone at the BBC and Discovery Channel shrugging jealously. The picture starts with some really beautiful shots of the French vinyards and mountains near the cave. It's presentation is what we've come to expect and it's instantly engaging. Long roving shots from a remote flying camera, hand-held POV's up mountain paths. The problems only start when we get inside the cave. Werner explains that the equipment that they could take in has to be very limited and they use non-professional camera gear. This isn't necessarily the problem though, we can take it with a pinch of salt. The real problem is in the 3D. First of all there is little light in the cave and so the gain is pushed into the camera signal and there's a lot of digital noise, especially in the dark areas, of which there are a lot. Now, noise/grain is always forgivable, until it starts dancing around in 3D, then it gives you a terrible headache. A lot of the shots are lit solely by a moving torch light and the constant re-focusing of your eyes only strains them further. However. the cave is quite amazing and we get to see it in detail. Later in the film some much better lit 3d shots are shown that really should have been used throughout. Footage of the cave is interspersed with interviews with various characters. The decision to use a rather generic voice over in place of subtitles for these interviews was certainly a small misstep and dilutes it a touch, but the film is not without it's moments. There are a couple of hilarious exchanges where Werner has typically cut someone off too early or left them hanging when they have finished. I do get the sense that he has become self aware and when chuckles are raised as Werner describes a cave painting as "Proto-cinema" I detected at least a hint of self parody, which I don't mind at all. The film winds up with the most spectacularly detailed shots of all, they do linger on a bit too long and I think the back half of the film would benefit from a cut of about 10 minutes. Having said all this, despite the technical distractions, the film is a semi-triumph in the way Encounters at the end of the world was. Some really great personal touches and a fascinating subject, but for god's sake see it in glorious 2D. 7/10

Plot

Werner Herzog gains exclusive access to film inside the Chauvet caves of Southern France and captures the oldest known pictorial creations of humanity.

Cast

Made by Werner Herzog, known for the likes of Grizzly Man and Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World.

Verdict

I deem Werner Herzog a competent documentarian, likely not in my top 10 but I have time for his works. What I appreciate it how much his documentaries vary in subject matter, this man has a wide spectrum of interests and that keeps things fresh.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams has a very interesting subject matter and as always he tells a remarkable story, however the biggest flaw to it is simply that the subject matter didn't warrant 90 minutes. This would have made for a fantastic 20 minute short film, stretching it out to this extent with a lot of filler footage and extended interviews with people providing little more than speculation is not entertaining.

I enjoyed Cave of Forgotten Dreams for what it is, but it's simply too long and what it brings to the table is as a result watered down.

Rants

You know one thing I do love about Herzog's documentaries (Or at least the ones I've seen)? No agenda. An alarmingly high percentage of documentaries these days aren't telling you about something, they're telling you what to think about it. Much like the news, they don't report it anymore and leave the opinions to yourself they hit you with their opinions. I hate the words agenda and propaganda as people use them incorrectly and use them to describe anything that doesn't suit their narrative. Sadly however, some things emphatically undeniably are and I'm so very tired of it.

Breakdown

Well made I always enjoy Herzog's narration Considerably too long Interviews could have been better.