Review of Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010) by Ray S — 20 Jul 2012

Ah, yes. 3D movies. Leave it to acclaimed filmmaker Werner Herzog, master of such cinematic spectacles as Fitzcarraldo and Rescue Dawn, as well as somber, meditative pieces like Strozek and Grizzly Man, to find the true potential of the third dimension.

Granted unprecedented (yet still severely limited) access to the famous Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave in southern France, which contains the oldest cave paintings to have been discovered to date and have only been seen by select members of the scientific and archeological field, Herzog uses a 3-D camera to invite the audience to see what he himself saw, to witness every crack and crevice in the wall, and to feel the urge to reach out and touch what hasnâ(TM)t been touched in thousands of years.

In typical Herzog fashion, he takes a subject most would only have a passing interest in (in this case, old cave paintings) and not only finds a way to make it visually engaging but also, using his bleak narrative voice, finds a story within the walls of the cave that is both compelling and beautiful (the title Cave of Forgotten Dreams already proves Herzog isnâ(TM)t just out to show pretty pictures).

While it is common for documentaries on foreign locales to make the viewer long to be there, after viewing Herzogâ(TM)s film, one feels as though they already were there, standing alongside the crew as they gazed at the hand painted walls, the fog of their breath grazing the stampeding buffalo frozen in time on the cold stone.

Herzog breaks up the footage of the caves with interviews, mostly scientists commenting on how the cave came to be perfectly preserved, and aerial shots of the Pont dâ(TM)Arc where Herzogâ(TM)s somber German accent nails home the idea that these walls, these paintings frozen forever within the confines of the cave, represent a world we will never know, and yet provide a gateway to imagine the people who lived in that world.

Never has a cinematic spectacle been so serene and introspective.