Rated G
Cast: Werner Herzog, Dominique Baffier, Jean Clottes, Jean-Michael Geneste, Carole Fritz, Gilles Tosello, Michel Philippe, Julien Monney, Wulf Hein, Nicholas Conard, Maria Malina, Maurice Maurin
Director: Werner Herzog
The culture ministry has gone to painstaking lengths in maintaining the integrity of the site, sealing it off, guarding it like a bank vault, only allowing guards--two at a time--into the site. Herzog obtained permission to gain access to the discovery. Accompanied by a small film crew armed with a limited collection of equipment and a tight group of brilliant scientific minds, Herzog ventured into the cavern. The result is "Cave of Forgotten Dreams."
Herzog's movies are both wise and hopeful... a trickier combination than it seems. He serves as narrator here, and imparts a few details of their journey, but doesn't spend a lot of time on them. This is more about the discovery itself. A healthy chunk of the movie consists of extended shots--set to an aching instrumental score--that patiently linger over various parts of the sweeping artistic display. To further crystallize the effect, the filmmakers light the walls using only a torch (as could only have been done at the time of the drawings' inception), and we're able to bear witness to the artwork almost coming to life, aided by flickering light and evocative shadows created by the illumination. The effect is breathtaking.
Intercut with such shots are various interpretations from scientists who had the opportunity to study the artwork. Herzog seems intrigued not only by those interpretations, but by the joy the scientists take in the opportunity to ponder such queries. At one point, as an archaeologist interprets one aspect of the discovery, he mentions that he didn't get into science until later in life. Herzog stops him. "What did you do before? As a career?" he asks. The man hems, haws, chuckles. "I used to perform. In a circus." I'm not exactly sure why Herzog chose to keep that exchange in the film's final cut. Maybe because too often scientists are labeled as mere curmudgeons whose insistence on evidence over faith renders them devoid of hopeful jouissance. The opposite is true. Herzog adores innocence. He embraces it in himself, and seeks it out in those who grace the front of his camera.
Yet Herzog only allows the interpretations to go so far. The film's final half-hour is noticeably free of such scientific elucidation. Instead we're treated to another score-accompanied montage of cave painting imagery to hauntingly pervading effect. Herzog understands that too much commentary can rob his audience of the joy in their own contemplation. The director's wisdom is evident in his restraint. (The most powerful scene in Herzog's previous film "Grizzly Man" involved a retrieved audio recording that captured wildlife activist Timothy Treadwell and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard being literally ripped apart in a wild bear attack. He doesn't play the tape for his audience. Instead, we see him listening to it, then switching it off, turning to Treadwell's next of kin and advising, "I think you should destroy this tape immediately.")
Here, Herzog imparts only measured doses of explication regarding the discovery; just enough to whet our interest. He then allows his camera to do the work, offering us the simple pleasure of experience coupled with our own contemplation and imagination. While most movies try to hammer home a point (or accrue a monetary profit), Herzog's approach is refreshingly radical. He wishes to present those who enter the theatre with a gift of film. I love that.
My favorite observation is made by a scientist who humbly rejects the labeling of human beings as homo sapiens, from the Latin origin literally meaning "wise man." He points out that wisdom is not inherent. The drawings are a joyous reminder that humans feel, survive, thrive. We love, fear, cry, hurt, become angry. We are forever entwined with all living things, in an ethereal bond with nature that extends beyond any expanse of time. In short, we are homo spiritualists, beings that are willing and able to summon any resource to make the loneliness bearable.
And so we are.
* * * 1/2 out of * * * * stars
