Probably when reviewing things, you should, by law, have to state how much sleep you've had, how much alcohol you've consumed etc., so that it is clear what other stimulants or lack of such contributed to your experience. In that spirit, I should state from the outset that when I went to see Werner Herzog's film "Cave of Forgotten Dreams' I was so fatigued that most of the human interest of the first twenty minutes consisted of wondering if I was going to manage to stay awake or not. I really liked Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, which I think was Herzog's last movie (though I did wonder why there were crocodiles and lizards everywhere, about which more later) but before that, I've often found his movies quite inaccessible, even his collaborations with batshit genius Klaus Kinski. Cave of Forgotten Dreams is about the Chauvet cave in southern France, discovered in the 1990s to contain some of the oldest and most beautiful cave paintings yet discovered, from 35,000 years ago. The film is shot in 3D, although it is never exactly clear why, because it is just a mixture of interviews and straightforward shots of cave paintings for the most part. I guess Herzog wanted to make a point about ancient art and modern technology, but this film would have been just as good in 2D. CoFD has some beautiful, haunting photography, but as a documentary it is really third rate, which is something that most of the newspaper reviews have missed.
As a one-hour TV documentary about cave paintings, larded with a few interviews with scientists speculating about what was going on there, it would have been fine. But then Herzog tries to whip his subject into something more meaningful, with references to Fred Astaire dancing with shadows, and pretentious voiceovers full of cliches like "crossing the abyss of centuries". There was some interesting stuff about how prehistoric man probably viewed the world, and about the lack of separation between man and animal, man and spirit, man and nature. I would have liked to have more of this, but no, hold on, we were off down another avenue of investigation, leading, like most caves, I assume, in another dead end.
Yes, the trouble with speculating about the past is that it's all pure speculation. I laughed out loud at the bit where Herzog says they found the track of a boy and a wolf next to each other: "vere zey frenz? or vas the volf stalking ze boy, or vere dese footprints tausands of years apart? Ve vill never know..." This is the stuff of spoof documentaries, not the real thing. The best bit, if you like, was when this old French lunatic with a big nose comes on, sniffing everthing. He explains that he is a retired master perfumerer, and now he is trying to sniff caves out, instead of using modern scientific methods of discovery. He sniffs around the undergrowth for a while, and then says, "I'm not picking anything up at the moment..." - I thought I was watching the Fast Show for a minute. The justification for bringing M. le Nez on for ten minutes was that they are, apparently, considering building a replica theme park based on the cave, and they may have to reproduce the smell. So what does the Chauvet Cave smell like, M. le Nez? "Naturally, after so long, the smells are somewhat attenuated" (he can't smell anything) "but if you use your imagination, you can conjure up fires burning, animals, humans..." ...and cheese.
At the end of the film, there is a 'postscript', and Herzog, appropos of nothing starts talking about a nuclear reactor, just downriver from the Chauvet cave, between Montelimar and Avignon, where water used to cool the reactors is diverted to a vast tropical greenhouse where plants grow and crocodiles live. "Boy do dey thrive!", comments Herzog, showing a versatile command of 1950s american slang. Then he mentions how "naturally" there are mutant crocodiles (because of the radiation?), which are albino, and...then he's off again - "are ve just crocodiles, gazing into the mirror of the past...?" No, not really...
Hold on, radioactive mutant albino crocodiles? Now that's a documentary I'd like to see...
As a one-hour TV documentary about cave paintings, larded with a few interviews with scientists speculating about what was going on there, it would have been fine. But then Herzog tries to whip his subject into something more meaningful, with references to Fred Astaire dancing with shadows, and pretentious voiceovers full of cliches like "crossing the abyss of centuries". There was some interesting stuff about how prehistoric man probably viewed the world, and about the lack of separation between man and animal, man and spirit, man and nature. I would have liked to have more of this, but no, hold on, we were off down another avenue of investigation, leading, like most caves, I assume, in another dead end.
Yes, the trouble with speculating about the past is that it's all pure speculation. I laughed out loud at the bit where Herzog says they found the track of a boy and a wolf next to each other: "vere zey frenz? or vas the volf stalking ze boy, or vere dese footprints tausands of years apart? Ve vill never know..." This is the stuff of spoof documentaries, not the real thing. The best bit, if you like, was when this old French lunatic with a big nose comes on, sniffing everthing. He explains that he is a retired master perfumerer, and now he is trying to sniff caves out, instead of using modern scientific methods of discovery. He sniffs around the undergrowth for a while, and then says, "I'm not picking anything up at the moment..." - I thought I was watching the Fast Show for a minute. The justification for bringing M. le Nez on for ten minutes was that they are, apparently, considering building a replica theme park based on the cave, and they may have to reproduce the smell. So what does the Chauvet Cave smell like, M. le Nez? "Naturally, after so long, the smells are somewhat attenuated" (he can't smell anything) "but if you use your imagination, you can conjure up fires burning, animals, humans..." ...and cheese.
At the end of the film, there is a 'postscript', and Herzog, appropos of nothing starts talking about a nuclear reactor, just downriver from the Chauvet cave, between Montelimar and Avignon, where water used to cool the reactors is diverted to a vast tropical greenhouse where plants grow and crocodiles live. "Boy do dey thrive!", comments Herzog, showing a versatile command of 1950s american slang. Then he mentions how "naturally" there are mutant crocodiles (because of the radiation?), which are albino, and...then he's off again - "are ve just crocodiles, gazing into the mirror of the past...?" No, not really...
Hold on, radioactive mutant albino crocodiles? Now that's a documentary I'd like to see...
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