If you see one film about caves this year, make it this one. If you see one documentary this year, make it this one. If you see one 3D movie, make it this one. I haven't seen any other cave movies or documentaries this year, but at least in the 3D category, this film far surpasses the likes of Drive Angry: Shot In 3D and Priest which are the only other 3D films I saw this year. Let me spoil the 'plot' as it were: there are cave paintings in France that are over thirty thousand years old and we are going to look at them and talk about them. If you don't think you would enjoy a virtual reality tour of a very large cavern, with some interviews and a side trip or two thrown in, then you probably wouldn't.
Writer-Director Werner Herzog provides most of our guidance in this journey, with his gentle Teutonic voice-over supplying context and his probing intellect asking questions both practical and philosophical of his interview subjects. Herzog is a rare kind of filmmaker who jumps back and forth between narrative features and documentaries with much deserved success in both; he even made a documentary and a feature film about the same subject, Dieter Dengler. Some of the scientists and budding amateurs he works with in the quest are natural characters and receive just enough focus to leave you wanting more; my two favorites are probably a former circus unicyclist who became an archaeologist and an elderly master perfumer who believes his sophisticated nasal organ makes him a preternatural cave hunter.
The French Ministry of Culture allowed him to make this film under very strict conditions so as not to damage his subject, the Chauvet caverns and their paintings; the more famous Lascaux caverns have been permanently closed because the warmth and moisture of visitors' breath began to cause mold. Some of the strict rules included very limited access to the cavern, both in time and personnel, but this was also to keep the cavern from damaging its observers; dangerous levels of carbon dioxide and radon permeate the caverns. Herzog even included a brief shot of the tiny (and I mean tiny) room where the film crew must change into head-to-toe protective gear and setup all their complicated photographic equipment.
All that danger, combined with the seclusion provided by the original entrance being covered by a collapsing cliff face years ago, does lend added potency and mysticism to the caves and their paintings. This is the oldest known human art, and not only is it easily recognizable, it is absolutely, sublimely, beautiful. Every picture save one (we'll come back to it) depicts animals and not humans. Horses, cave bears, bison, some sort of panther, all sorts of creatures. Some of the creatures depicted have been extinct for thousands of years. Some of the other creatures, like the cave bear, have their skulls placed significantly in the center of large rooms that the bears themselves decorated centuries earlier with thick, terrifying claw marks in solid stone walls.
There are animals running, fighting, mating, eating, and there are animals inside other animals: one giant sketch of a horse, containing another slightly smaller sketch, and so on downward like a nesting doll. One picture is drawn around a stalagmite hanging from the ceiling, making it very difficult to photograph completely on all sides because the film crew must remain on narrow walkways to protect the ground from wear and tear. After jerry-rigging some sort of camera onto some sort of stick, they get a good shot of the whole thing, and its a picture of a woman and a bison in... uh... congress. That's right. Over thirty thousands years ago, somebody made a really lovely painting of a woman fucking an animal; and you thought The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife was old.
Even way back when the original entrance was not yet collapsed, the painters only worked in areas of the cavern that had to be lit by fires. Prehistoric man sure know how to create an atmosphere. Nowadays of course they use battery operated cold light panels so as not to disturb or damage the delicate rock surfaces. But the atmosphere remains. It's not hard to imagine, as many of the scientists involved do, that the cave was some sort of temple. And why isn't it hard to imagine? Because of the 3D! Gloriously photographed so you can see every last detail, it might seem strange at first to utilize 3D for a film with so little movement, but the decision was completely correct.
Supposedly, Herzog had only ever seen one 3D film, Avatar, and had not liked it. Perhaps that's what made him such a strong candidate to make a good 3D film. There almost definitely was not a better way to correctly convey the size of the caves. Seriously, these things are fucking huge. The first room, which used to get sunlight so it doesn't even have any paintings because they hid all those in the back in the dark, is like the lobby of a gigantic skyscraper or international hotel and resort. A few scientists put together a 3D computerized map of the cavern using billions of references points for every individual rock or pebble, and it really does boggle mind to get a complete picture of just how extensive this cave is.
The climax of the film, as it were, is a series of long uninterrupted shots of the paintings, accompanied by music but no narration, appearing at first in total darkness before being slowly illuminated and then slowly plunged back into darkness. Every texture and curve and irregularity of the wall was incorporated into the designs by their painters, so seeing the walls in 3D exactly as they did is uncanny. Actually, its more like like having the wall right there in front of you but also blown up more than ten times over. It is very impressive and more than a little intimidating.
For early man, who had no buildings, to descend into a crack in the earth, and push deeper and deeper until all he could see was flickering lights and animals all around him must have been a powerful spiritual experience; it is no different for modern man. Herzog takes us one step further however, stretching the story to an unexpected conclusion a few kilometers down river involving nuclear power and albino crocodiles. When he observes the unlikely creatures frolicking in the water and remarks "Man, do they thrive" it warmed my heart probably more than any other movie this year, even those with humans instead of mutants.
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