La Guerre du feu

Many of my friends laugh at me when I mention this movie. I don't know what makes so many of them hate it so.. Perhaps the lack of understandable dialogue? Too much like thinking to understand what is going on? Whatever it is, I am one of the few I know who feel this is a very underrated movie.. I know it is not accurate from a scientific perspective... The time line is all messed up.. but so what? I sat there in the theater just thinking.. "suppose live in our distant past WAS something like this movie. Fire=Life=Fire. Along comes a superior tribe and I realize that I could summon the flames at MY WILL. How powerful I would feel.. Almost G-d like! The photography is lush and there is a tinge of humor when the backward tribe learns to laugh. I enjoyed the story and the acting... everything. Rent it! See it twice if you must. Just maybe... we ARE looking back at ourselves.

Much has been said about the movie and all I want to add is what I think are the two best scenes in the movie. The first is when the clay covered tribe member took Naoh into the cave and showed him how to make fire by friction. The look on Naoh's face could not express more wonder if he had pulled a buffalo out of his ear. The second scene was after they returned to their own tribe and tried to narrate to the rest of their tribe the things that they had seen along the way, seemingly inventing language as they went.

I saw this film (on VHS rental) so long ago I might have been in it. My (ex) wife & friends thought it was stupid - "What's going on? Nobody's saying anything". I found it mesmerising and have been looking for it ever since (car boot sales, Ebay etc).

OK, if you've two adjacent brain cells, you'll spot the anachronisms and the cheap effects, but credit where it's due for originality and balls - to the director and the backers.

If you're sick of hype and tripe, find it. If you're hooked intravenously to Hollywood pap (as 99.999% of the world's population seem to be) then give it a miss.

Just my 2p.

This is an extremely overlooked film many people should learn about. First, it tells you a very complex story without a single line of dialog successfully.

Second, the story is universal: Every civilization on earth can pick up this film and understand it, because it goes to the most basic, primitive issues of a species (mainly, survival). Third, it makes the beginning of man interesting. Fourth, it reminds us we were once as savage as any other animal on earth.

Fifth, it's like no other movie you've seen before. That one I can guarantee you.

"Quest for Fire" (1981 - 100 minutes), under Jean-Jacques Annaud direction and written by Gérard Brach, was based on the book of J. H. Rosny. The movie develops a travel in time showing one of the biggest conquest of human kind: the domain of fire. It's a 80 thousand years ago beautiful drama. The Ulan tribe lives nearby a natural source of fire. When the fire went out, three members of the tribe have to search for a new flame. After several days of walking and having to face many dangerous situations like wild animals, down temperatures and even cannibal tribes, they found the Ivakas, a more evolved human group that had already discovered how to "make" fire. With locations in Kenya, Scotland, Island and Canada, the movie was based on scientific knowledge, showing convincing habitats and characters. The preparation work of the actors body language was done by the Anthropologist Desmond Morris and Anthony Burgess took care of the "talking" of these human ancestors. Almost an Anthropology documentary, this excellent movie shows at the end a scene that suggests the "discovery of love" between male and female. Absolutely unforgettable.