Cave of Forgotten Dreams

Cave of Forgotten Dreams is Werner Herzog's new film about Chauvet Cave, which contains the oldest known paintings, dated at around 32,000 years old—twice as old as those at Lascaux. This film was shot in 3-D, making this my first 3-D film experience (not counting the old ones with the blue and red film glasses). And having seen it this way, it's hard for me to imagine not seeing it in 3-D. In a normal 2-D projection, things just become big. With this 3-D technology, things appear close. This is significant. As a result, close-up shots of the cave interior have a much stronger sense of touch, which seems integral to this project. Since very, very few people will ever experience these paintings in person, this may be the only way we'll ever see them, and this makes the 3-D component very important in my mind.

Having said this, there are times when the 3-D effect falls short, and things feel like they're spatially confused, even inverted—some moments when the researchers were being interviewed in the cave come to mind. I don't know if this was a glitch in the filming or in the editing. However, for most of the film, and thankfully in all the moments where it seemed to really matter, like slow-panning close-ups of the cave interior, it was utterly successful and captivating.

Herzog's exploration of these paintings lead him to the eccentric characters associated with the cave, a look at other artwork from the same era (Venus of Willendorf and similar statuettes found elsewhere in Europe) and even thoughts on shadow play. There was a moment in the film which completely shifted gears from the ancient paintings to a clip of Fred Astaire dancing with his shadows. But this is an interesting metaphor as the film crew aim their own dancing lights in the cave—as Astaire's shadows dance independently of the dancer himself, the mysteries of the cave paintings cannot be known by our attempts to illuminate. They take on a life of their own.

The paintings are extraordinary. The undulating cave walls, as a working surface, are already charged with energy and movement. Added to this are layers of animal scratches, human scratches, rhythms of line and blending of charcoal (the primary pigment) with what appears to be chalk. The images themselves radiate movement through the use of repetition and rhythm, which I found fascinating (see the rhino horns below).

This is an imperfect film to be sure, but the impressions from this experience will not leave me anytime soon.