In 1994 in a cave in Southern France known as the Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc was discovered which contains some of the oldest etchings made by man. The cave is over 20,000 years old and only a few archaeologists and paleontologists are allowed into the cave. Few have obtained access to the cave because of fear of damage. German documentary filmmaker Werner Herzog obtained permission to film with non-heat emitting lights and a small crew. Our ancestors created this beautiful artwork around 32,000 years ago. Herzog asks questions to various historians and scientists. He is wondering what these humans would have been like. He is thinking about trying to build a bridge from the past to the present.
The etchings and the cave itself are very interesting. The only problem I have with this film is there are a limited number of etchings featured so they are shown multiple times. There are other areas of the cave that were not shown because the floor cannot be walked on. 3* This movie is OK)
90 min, Doc directed and written by Werner Herzog with Dominique Baffier, Jean Clottes. Werner Herzog, Julien Monney, Jean-Michel Geneste, Michel Philippe, Gilles Tosello, Carole Fritz, Valerie Feruglio, Nicholas Conard, Maria Malina, Wulf Hein, Maurice Maurin.
Note: Imdb 7.4 out of 10 with 14,620 reviews, 96% critic with 134 critics 76% audience with 12,528 ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, The Guardian 5* Peter Bradshaw, Roger Ebert 3 1/2*, Metacritic 86 out of 10 with 34 critic reviews 6.8 out of 10 with 53 user ratings, Letterboxd 3.7* out of 5*, Amazon 4.4* of 5* with 587 reviews, netflix.com 3.7* with 391,511 votes, indiewire.com grade A-.
Special Note: This is the highest-grossing independently released documentary of the year 2011 in the USA. As of 12 June 2011 the gross was $6.4 million, earnings over 10 times than the second-place film!! The tap dance by Fred Astaire with his shadow is from the movie Swing Time. The first 20 of the film are sot with two GoPro Hero cameras taped side-to-side with one upside down. At the time of filming there wasn’t a 3D-system small enough for the cave available. The remainder of the film was shot on professional, higher-quality 2k 3D-cameras with follow-focus at a later date when they were available. There has been criticism that this film is too long and too empty. There is a prolonged visit with museums elsewhere in Europe not related to this cave. Early humans are discussed but not the type of humans who have entered this cave? Usually, France would request the premiere be held in France but Herzog said, “They didn’t know it was finished?”
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