Review of Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010) by David L — 05 Dec 2011
Famed director Werner Herzog makes rather a mess of what should have been a straightforward documentary about a series of cave paintings found in the Ardeche region of France. The paintings themselves are beautiful renditions of mammonths, rhinos, wild cats and especially horses.
The problem is that there aren't that many of them, so the film shows us the same pictures again and again and again. The crew clearly ran out of ideas and start introducing odd characters, such as the perfume expert who tries to sniff out caves from the outside.
Heraog spins out the film with flights of fancy such as imagining that when cavemen looked at the flickering drawings, the effect would have been the same as watching an old Charlie Chaplin film. He ends the documentary with a bizarre shot of albino crocodiles living not far away in a zoo heated by a nuclear power station.
Cave of Forgotten Dreams -- which runs a good 15 minutes too long at 97 minutes -- is worth watching for the pictures, though.
This review of Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010) was written by David L on 05 Dec 2011.
Cave of Forgotten Dreams has generally received positive reviews.
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