Two things I love about Werner Herzog: first, he is profoundly and candidly curious about the world; second, he is profoundly and candidly eccentric when he expresses his curiosity. Some documentarians sit quietly as they behold their subjects, seemingly keen to avoid imprinting them with their own agenda (which is nigh impossible in any case). Herzog, on the other hand, doesn’t hesitate to convey his thoughts, even if they seem strange and half-digested.
His curiosity and his fame won him coveted (and very limited) access to the famous Chauvet Cave in France, only discovered in 1994 and conscientiously closed to the public for preservation. The cave is home to some of the oldest paintings known to exist on earth, dating back as far as 30,000 B.C.E. The filmmaker was granted access on condition that he bring a bare-minimum film crew (four members including himself), use lights that don’t give off excess heat (he handles them himself), never stray off the metal walkway which runs through the cave, and only film a few hours a day (the environment inside is actually fairly toxic with prolonged exposure).
Somehow, all of these obstacles work to his advantage. The rock faces and paintings upon them loom suddenly from pitch darkness, and the unsteady play of Herzog’s light panels is almost akin to the firelight wielded by the painters. A scene depicting charging rhinos, already conveying a sense of force and movement, dances even more as the shadows flicker across it. A painting drawn on the far side of a stalactite can’t quite be glimpsed from the walkway, but far from disappointing us, this draws our eyes closer. Herzog shot the film in 3-D, which is how it was most often presented in theatres (and how I first saw it). He, like myself, is no great fan of 3-D filmmaking, but Cave of Forgotten Dreams is an interesting use of the technology. The undulating rock walls are indispensable components of the paintings, their slopes and crevices exploited by long-dead artists, and this can be seen much better in 3-D. On the other hand, the darkness and the crew’s handheld equipment produce any number of optical illusions and artifacts that the likes of James Cameron certainly wouldn’t tolerate. So much the better, I say. It’s nice to be reminded how easily our eyes and brains are fooled.
In any case, most of you will probably be watching in 2-D anyway. The 3-D version is included on the Blu-ray for those few who have the proper hardware to view it. The real treat is the journey into our distant past, sometimes recognizable to our modern minds, other times wholly alien. As effectively as Herzog casts a deep spell here, he doesn’t fail to amuse or bemuse us with his own mind. Many have talked about his out-of-left-field epilogue to this film–I will only say it made me laugh, and appreciate the man even more. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]
[...] Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010) – 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. – [imdb] – click here to read our review [...]