 ***PLEASE NOTE: A Blu-ray 3D disc is only compatible with 3D Blu-ray players.*** One of the most successful documentaries of all time from the incomparable Werner Herzog (Encounters At The End Of The World, Grizzly Man) Cave Of Forgotten Dreams provides a breathtaking cinematic experience in 3D following an exclusive expedition into the Chauvet Cave in France, home to the most ancient pictorial art ever discovered. The film provides a unique view of nearly inaccessible pristine works dating back over 30,000 years - almost twice as old as any other known to exist. Herzog evokes wonder and curiosity in equal measure as he explores the very beginning of human culture. Storyline: In 1994, a group of scientists discovered a cave in Southern France perfectly preserved for over 20,000 years and containing the earliest known human paintings. Knowing the cultural significance that the Chauvet Cave holds, the French government immediately cut-off all access to it, save a few archaeologists and paleontologists. But documentary filmmaker, Werner Herzog, has been given limited access, and now we get to go inside examining beautiful artwork created by our ancient ancestors around 32,000 years ago. He asks questions to various historians and scientists about what these humans would have been like and trying to build a bridge from the past to the present. Written by napierslogs Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Casey Broadwater, November 30, 2011 -- Like it or not, 3D has taken over the multiplex and is increasingly making its way into home theaters. At its worst, it's a gimmicky way to get movie watchers to plop down extra cash for a murky, dim, sometimes even nauseating experience. At best, it's…well, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Teutonic cinema shaman Werner Herzog's latest documentary, which presents the most integral, holistic use of 3D in a film yet. The problem with many 3D movies is that, aside from the temporary wow-factor, the extra dimensionality doesn't really feel necessary. But in Cave of Forgotten Dreams, the 3D presentation is absolutely essential, used to give us a nearly tangible feel for Herzog's subject matter—the rock walls of the Chauvet Cave in southern France. Or, more precisely, what's on those walls—stunning Paleolithic paintings that date back over 30,000 years, twice as old as any previously found cave art. Though the paintings constitute one of the most significant cultural finds of all time, few will ever set eyes upon them, as even the simple act of breathing inside the cave could cause mold spores to grow and cover the walls. Since its discovery in 1994, the cave—which was sealed off 20,000 years ago by an avalanche—has been on literal lockdown, with small teams of scientists only permitted inside for a few weeks each year. And that's where Mr. Herzog comes in, graciously bringing us along on a guided tour of humanity's oldest art gallery. Herzog will probably be best remembered for his string of baroquely operatic fictional films starring the wild-eyed, tantrum-throwing Klaus Kinski— including Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre, the Wrath of God—but he is without question one of the most versatile and prolific of living filmmakers. It's hard to think of another director who could so effortlessly transition between Grizzly Man and Rescue Dawn, Encounters at the End of the World and Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, drastically different films that—at the same time —are all unmistakably his. Herzog's particular talent for documentaries is in finding subjects that are odd, yes, but expressively human, almost spiritual in a completely non-religious, devotedly scientific way. In looking at the paintings in Cave of Forgotten Dreams, he doubts we'll ever be able to truly "understand the vision of the artists through such an abyss of time," but he presents the artwork they left behind as some of the earliest signs we have of the awakening of the "modern human soul." The scale of time is nearly unimaginable, and inherently humbling. The oldest paintings in the cave are 32,000 years old, but there are others inside made up to 5,000 years later, a span nearly as long as all of recorded history. It makes today's cycle of up-to-the-second Twitter updates and Facebook news feeds seem completely inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. The paintings themselves are strikingly beautiful—much more accomplished than what you'd expect from primitive humans. Male and female lions are drawn proportionally and anatomically correct. Rhinos square off to battle, heads lowered and eyes visibly angry. Horses gallop across a landscape made of bulging rock, their mouths opened in almost audible whinnies. One bison is even drawn with eight legs to suggest motion, a nascent form of animation that Herzog—in his iconic Bavarian baritone—refers to as "proto-cinema." In 3D, every crack, recession, and protuberance of the rock face is dimensionally visible, allowing us to see exactly how these ancient artists utilized the contours of the cave wall to add depth and movement to their tableaus. Aside from a single scrawled image of a woman's legs and pubic triangle—being seemingly embraced by a bison, no less—there are no depictions of humans inside the Chauvet cave. There are, however, poignant reminders that the cave was visited by actual individuals. Scrapes of charcoal reveal where torches were scratched on the wall to rekindle the embers. A child's footprints are found next to those of a wolf, and Herzog wonders about three possibilities: 1.) the boy was hunted, 2.) the boy and the wolf were friends, or 3.) the prints were made thousands of years apart. Upon entering the cave, one of the first sights is an enormous boulder covered in vivid ochre handprints. From the size and placement— and the presence of a slightly crooked pinky finger—scientists can tell these were made by a single human man who stood just under six feet tall. We can never know why he was compelled to press his palm repeatedly up against this rock, but the reminder that one man made these marks—one man who lived and breathed and presumably broke his pinky at some point in distant history—is absolutely mind-blowing. It's also baffling to think that while Homo Sapiens were etching out intricate line drawings inside the Chauvet cave, their evolutionary rivals, the Neanderthals—who left no evidence of pictorial art—were still roaming through Europe, soon to die out. In typical Herzog fashion, the film is populated with sometimes kooky, sometimes profound, but always stranger-than-fiction characters. We meet an Einstein look-a-like who gives us a lesson in spear-throwing, and a master perfumer who sniffs the countryside, smelling for drafts that might indicate the presence of undiscovered caves. There's a circus performer-turned-scientist who had vivid dreams of lions after spending five days in Chauvet, and an "experimental archeologist" who—I kid you not—dresses in reindeer pelts and plays "The Star-Spangled Banner" on a reproduction of a Paleolithic flute made from the arm-bone of a badger. Throughout, Herzog gives his characteristically terse-but-poetic narration, posing unanswerable questions about existence. A strange post script coda tries a bit too hard to compare modern humans with the "mutant albino crocodiles" that—believe it or not—live in a nuclear-powered greenhouse "twenty miles, as the crow flies" from Chauvet, but this is perhaps the only flaw in a monumentally beautiful film about the mysteries of time and humanity. We're left wondering—what sparked that fire of creative consciousness in our ancestors? One of the first major documentaries to use 3D, and one of the first films in general to truly exploit the possibilities of 3D, Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams is an awe-inspiring journey back to the dawn of human creativity and easily one of my favorite films of 2011. The quality of the 3D image on this Blu-ray disc may not thrill you—this is no Avatar—but if there's any humanity inside you whatsoever you'll be bowled over by the subject matter. This is transcendent documentary filmmaking. Highly recommended. IMDb Rating (02/02/12): 7.5/10 from 3,125 users
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