April 11, 2011
This is a lovingly detailed documentary by veteran German film director Werner Herzog about the mind-blowingly awesome Chauvet caves: discovered in 1997 to contain incredibly beautiful and mysterious cave paintings dating back as far as 35,000 years (more than twice as old as any previously discovered). You are never going to be allowed to visit these caves, because access is absolutely restricted to a few scientists (so as to preserve the art from the polluting breath of tourists, which has so damaged the more famous cave paintings at Lascaux) - so this is pretty much your only chance to see what's inside.
The paintings are all of animals, with one mysterious exception, which the archaeologists insist is a representation of a naked woman from the waist down with a bison superimposed on the top, but I just couldn't see this, try as I might. It's not easy to see either, since even scientists can't walk on the floor of the cave (which has been magically transformed by thousands of years of calceous deposits into a breathtaking glittering array of sparkly debris) but must stick to the metal ramp, and even when they put the camera on a stick and held it out to try to view the alleged female drawing better, it was still by no means clear. But if this is a drawing of a woman, it is the ONLY depiction of a human being among thousands of exquisitely portrayed animals. According to archaeologists humans have never at any time lived in this cave complex, whereas the now extinct cave bear did live in it for considerable periods of time and left lots of now glittery bones behind, in addition to raking the walls with its impressively huge claws. So not only did the unknown artists have to make their paintings by flame-light in the pitch black, they also had to avoid being eaten by bears. Bears, as well as lions, bison, and rhinoceros, feature often in the paintings, giving evidence of the amazing variety of wild animals tramping about southern France in those days. They're not hunting or otherwise behaving, they're just...there - looking astonishingly graceful and beautifully observed. One bear head was painted around a flaw in the rock that became the bear's eye. Clearly, the painters were not so self-obsessed as we are; though one (probably) man left dozens of bright red palm-prints on a flat rock face near the entrance.
35,000 years is unimaginably distant - before Neanderthals became extinct - before agriculture or the wheel - and yet whoever these people were they went to the trouble of painting these astonishing images, which are so much more beautiful and accomplished than any other animal images in Europe until the Renaissance. How did they live? Why did they do it? What did it mean to them? One of the most delightful things about the movie is the time it takes to show how bewitched, bothered and utterly bewildered the scientists themselves are by this shattering combination of beauty and mystery. It certainly adds some perspective to the trivia of modern life. Really, the whole thing is just jaw-dropping, and it's a great opportunity to see it on a big screen. Run to the cinema now before it disappears forever.
The paintings are all of animals, with one mysterious exception, which the archaeologists insist is a representation of a naked woman from the waist down with a bison superimposed on the top, but I just couldn't see this, try as I might. It's not easy to see either, since even scientists can't walk on the floor of the cave (which has been magically transformed by thousands of years of calceous deposits into a breathtaking glittering array of sparkly debris) but must stick to the metal ramp, and even when they put the camera on a stick and held it out to try to view the alleged female drawing better, it was still by no means clear. But if this is a drawing of a woman, it is the ONLY depiction of a human being among thousands of exquisitely portrayed animals. According to archaeologists humans have never at any time lived in this cave complex, whereas the now extinct cave bear did live in it for considerable periods of time and left lots of now glittery bones behind, in addition to raking the walls with its impressively huge claws. So not only did the unknown artists have to make their paintings by flame-light in the pitch black, they also had to avoid being eaten by bears. Bears, as well as lions, bison, and rhinoceros, feature often in the paintings, giving evidence of the amazing variety of wild animals tramping about southern France in those days. They're not hunting or otherwise behaving, they're just...there - looking astonishingly graceful and beautifully observed. One bear head was painted around a flaw in the rock that became the bear's eye. Clearly, the painters were not so self-obsessed as we are; though one (probably) man left dozens of bright red palm-prints on a flat rock face near the entrance.
35,000 years is unimaginably distant - before Neanderthals became extinct - before agriculture or the wheel - and yet whoever these people were they went to the trouble of painting these astonishing images, which are so much more beautiful and accomplished than any other animal images in Europe until the Renaissance. How did they live? Why did they do it? What did it mean to them? One of the most delightful things about the movie is the time it takes to show how bewitched, bothered and utterly bewildered the scientists themselves are by this shattering combination of beauty and mystery. It certainly adds some perspective to the trivia of modern life. Really, the whole thing is just jaw-dropping, and it's a great opportunity to see it on a big screen. Run to the cinema now before it disappears forever.
