Cave of Forgotten Dreams

Directed by Werner Herzog

(G)

***

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“It takes a big subject to upstage” documentary filmmaker Werner Herzog, said Manohla Dargis in The New York Times. But the “astonishing” Chauvet cave, in southern France, literally dwarfs the renowned German auteur as he ventures underground to explore paintings that date back 32,000 years. Since Chauvet’s discovery, in 1994, the French government has tightly controlled access to the cave. But Herzog’s new film puts the “ghostly menagerie” of galloping horses, roving bison, cave lions, and woolly mammoths “within 3-D grabbing reach.” The 3-D technology truly enhances this experience, said Dana Stevens in Slate.com. As the camera tracks slowly over the limestone rock face, the extra dimension emphasizes “the cave’s contours and the spatial relations between one painting and the next.” True, Herzog floats “speculative theories” about our distant ancestors that “might get him in trouble with archaeologists.” But it’s his “penchant for philosophical enquiry” that makes him so well suited to this task, said Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times. Although we can never truly know what was going through the artists’ minds, that doesn’t diminish “the profound feelings these images awaken in us.”