Cave of Forgotten Dreams

2010 "Humanity's Lost Masterpiece... in 3D"
7.4| 1h30m| G| en| More Info
Released: 03 November 2010 Released
Producted By: ARTE
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website: http://www.caveofforgottendreams.co.uk/
Synopsis

Werner Herzog gains exclusive access to film inside the Chauvet caves of Southern France, capturing the oldest known pictorial creations of humankind in their astonishing natural setting.

... View More
Stream Online

Stream with AMC+

Director

Producted By

ARTE

AD
AD

Watch Free for 30 Days

All Prime Video Movies and TV Shows. Cancel anytime. Watch Now

Trailers & Images

Reviews

Lawbolisted Powerful
Onlinewsma Absolutely Brilliant!
Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.
Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.
Roman Gronkowski A film that should touch the human in everybody. Werner Herzog's documentary "Cave of Forgotten dreams" brings images to the world, that have not been seen for over 20,000 years. This masterpiece in film takes us to view the oldest known pictorial works of art in human history some dating back as far as 32,000 years old. The artwork mainly consists of Horses, Lions and Bison of the time. Situated in a France, the "Chauvet caves" where discovered in 1994, up until that time the caves had been sealed completely by a rock fall and its contents locked in time. Herzog guides us poetically through the cave introducing us to the artwork made by humans of the upper Paleolithic era, offering interpretations from himself and eccentric experts. They include an archaeologist, a master perfumer and an anthropologist. Each of them puts in their own ideas and element of madness, coerced out by Herzog's peculiar questions. Often Herzog goes off track in his interviews and asks questions that would not normally spring to mind. This approach to telling the story purifies the concepts Herzog is trying to put across, Ideas of "The beginning of the human soul" and emotions and dreams of the ancient humans. This only magnifies the amazing and quite stunning story of the cave. Throughout the film Herzog perpetually looks for the human in all of his Interviewee's in an attempt to connect them to the human's of the past. I find the greatest achievement of the film is the bridge built by Herzog to the humans of the cave; he somehow restores a link over such an abyss of time that is truly remarkable. His poetic soliloquies require no further comment, only amazement and acknowledgment of the ideas he plants in your brain that grow if you let them. After the film I was left completely stunned at this beautiful delve into an ancient world and somehow I felt a strange empathy towards the humans of the time. The camera work and look of the film is gorgeous although within the cave Herzog is limited in his equipment and allowed only a few LED lights. Yet he manages to play with the shadows and textures of the paintings with light, enriching the visuals and creating movement. He try's to mentally take us to the cave and imagine the artists standing there, admiring their work by the light of fire's, as their paintings flicker, shift and move like real animals. Time and time again throughout the film you are left in state of awe, this film goes above and beyond the requirements of documenting; it reaches the heights of being culturally significant to the human community. An original music score was written for the film, it has a haunting quality. It plays mostly over images of the artwork, complimenting the camera work as the camera moves right as the animals face left. The illusion of movement is created with the lights and the music is appropriately titled "Shadow". This sequence in the film is so deep and raw with emotion, the animals really do appear real, as if in packs and out hunting. Herzog then explores outside the cave, introducing us to a Paleolithic flute made from ivory. A rather enthusiastic and possibly mad "experimental" archaeologist plays "star spangled banner" with the limited notes on the flute. This is yet again Herzog building a relationship between us and these wonderful humans of the past. Is he perhaps implying that 30,000 years ago, a man may have played that tune out of the flute, unaware of what that song would go on to represent? Or did it perhaps mean something then? There are few negatives that can be drawn from the film, and also for Herzog. Perhaps his fabrication of the lives of the ancient humans may be of an annoyance to the less poetically inclined, who want for concrete facts and no creative speculation. I find his style and vision faultless, if facts are what you are after then there are textbooks with them. Herzog provides so much more, that the only negative that can be cast upon him, will simply be a dislike to his film making in general. I will conclude as Herzog did exploring the ideas of humanness. I found this a very touching point to end the film on. His interviewee talks about the ideas that man has to communicate his surroundings, from the animals to the landscapes and humans themselves, there seams to be this urge to paint it, draw it or film it. Suggesting that visuals serve as a far greater articulation of human spirit than forms of oral language. Herzog suggests that this cave was possibly the start of such a communication with the future. A thought I had after the film was, what if the Humans of the cave could view this film, and how would they react to the wonder and amazement to their work? Would Herzog's interviewee's hypotheses come true, that these humans where trying to communicate their world to the future? It is perhaps that, but the real beauty in Herzog's outstanding film is that it will stand as a testament for humans of this civilisation to the humans of the next, it will tell of our fascination with Art, History and our fellow man.
johnmkirby I don't usually write reviews. In fact I don't think I've ever written one. My basic comments are similar to others I've seen here. The basic story of this cave art (assuming everything to be legitimate) is very interesting. But to most of us, this is probably a 5-10 minute story. The images are immediately stunning; but unless you are fascinated by the minutiae of artwork, it can't justify 60+ minutes. There are only so many times I can see the same horses, rhinos and lions etc. Then to boot, they tried to add some "filler" (e.g. interviews of people outside the cave), but the filler is very tangential and of borderline value. E.g. one guy who looks for caves by sniffing the air; with no suggestion that this actually works. And a former circus-worker theorizing about ancient art (based on a very loosely-relevant story about Australian art). And a guy explaining hunting with the atlatl (without using the term), with no real connection to the cave. I would have been interested in e.g. the actual finding of the cave itself (e.g. an interview of the persons who found it, or original accounts); or e.g. a scientific discussion of how we know that this is legitimate and not a hoax (aside from one very brief comment about some sort of growth over the art supposedly proving that it's real). Or heck, even of how they built that walkway in the cave without disturbing the surrounding floor. And there's not even any discussion of the absence of people (predominately) from the artwork. So it seems like there is other "filler" that might have worked (i.e. relevant and interesting filler). Nuff said I guess.
herterb The music becomes grating and overbearing as does Herzog's voice which is way paste its sell date but he is too in love with his own voice to hear that. What a waste of an opportunity. Get rid of the "scientists". Why are they in the cave getting in the way of filming the subject matter? They have to be there this one hour the are allowed to film? I wanted to experience the paintings with light approximating the moving torches that the cave painters carried. Instead we get all these concentrated bright spots from flashlight like head lamps from all these annoying scientists ruining every shot. i watched this in 2D. Someone should have told Herzog that if he had just properly and sparingly used the lights that he had we could have gotten an adequate sense of the 3 D of the cave walls from the shadows, as the film fleetingly does, if the light had moved consistently with the camera. He needed a real cinematographer with some brains and visualization ability like the cave painters had 30,000 years ago. As is all too typical, even for Victorian era architecture and furnishings, claimed in the name of science or preservation, but really to boost their importance, people with degrees always want to exclude others without the same degree from seeing things they are preserving. Why did the curator need to be there breathing on everything? Was this a condition of permission to film. She could have explained what we were seeing in voice over later and yielded her breathing damage time to the film crew but she wanted her face in the film. I thought having a boom mic operator was a waste too as was stopping the filming for a room tone type audio recording. This seem to be filmed and lit without any imagination or planning as if it was just any ol' location. Obviously the play of darkness and light coming only from moving torches influenced the way the animals were depicted. Even the scientists present, literally, and some in the future could have learned something from this if it had been lit and filmed to reproduce the way it was experienced by the cave painters.I'll take Herzog at his work that filming access may never be granted again and give him 1 star for squandering the privilege and preventing someone more capable from doing it. As a doc filmmaker over 60 I also feel embarrassed at the thought of being associated with him for that. He needs to retire now.
karen-loethen I admit it, I'm a nerd about many fields of study. The Chauvet caves in Southern France have always amazed me so I was delighted to discover this documentary on Netflix. I was not disappointed. The visuals are as good as I had hoped and the scientists working on the project are great sources of information. This film is our one opportunity to walk through that steel door and to see, with our own eyes, the artistry of our ancestors...sublime. It's a wonder to join this research study into the crystal cave. See the cave bear skull ensconced in the crystal concretions from tens of thousands of years of natural processes. My thanks to the producers of the film. My imagination sparked! Highly recommended.