Film Reviews

Cave Of Forgotten Dreams 3D

• Rating:
• Director: Werner Herzog
• Starring: Werner Herzog
• Details: Canada/US/Germany/France/UK / 90mins (G).

Bouncing back and forth between documentaries (Grizzly Man, Encounters At The End Of The World) and drama (Rescue Dawn; Bad Lieutenant; My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?), Werner Herzog returns again to documentary with Cave Of Forgotten Dreams and with it delivers the greatest use of 3D since the craze became popular again.
Gaining unprecedented access to the Chauvet Cave in the south of France, Herzog takes us inside human history. Sealed off 20,000 years ago by a landslide, the caves were discovered in 1994 by three explorers and what a discovery it turned out to be. For inside holds "one of the great works of art in the world": towards the back of the cave, where light cannot diminish the quality, are wondrous cave paintings. What is amazing about these paintings is that the artists were obviously talented. Some give the animals the illusion of movement, as Herzog says, "like frames in an animated film." Others boast animals looking head-on instead of the profile paintings synonymous the cave art. The paintings date back to some 30,000 years ago, twice as old as those previously recorded, with some drawn five thousand years apart. One painting is of a woman and a bison sexually entangled.
But that's not all Herzog's camera picks up: bones of different animals are scattered about, an early tin whistle fashioned from the bones of a vulture is discovered, and there seems to be an altar where a sacrifice was made. Sexuality, music and religion aren't themes usually associated with ice age homo sapiens. With all this to whet the appetite of the history student, Herzog treats us to gorgeous use of 3D: with his camera swooping about the dimly lit caves, the viewer can almost reach out and touch the stalagmites and stalactites that adorn the cave and allows the audience to believe we're in there with him. It's all fascinating stuff.
Where Herzog drops the ball is when he moves away from the cave to interview scientists about other caves in Germany, which really don't have much bearing on his documentary. The interviews too can go on a tad long. But all is forgiven when he returns to the cave and treats the viewer to an elongated montage to choral music.

Review by Gavin Burke