Multimodal writing

Volume 21 Issue: 18

23 September 2011

©2011 EurekaStreet.com.au 6

The mystical art of rudeness

FILMS

Tim Kroenert

Cave of Forgotten Dreams (G). Director: Werner Herzog. 90 minutes

At more than 30,000 years old, the paintings in southern France’s Chauvet Cave are by far

the oldest known examples of cave art. They have been preserved in near pristine condition

due to a rock slide that sealed the cave 20,000 years ago, and to severe restrictions that since

the cave’s rediscovery in 1994 have limited human access except by a select team of scientists

and academics.

More recenlty, German filmmaker Herzog was granted unprecedented access,

accompanied by a diminutive production crew. The result of their visit is this extraordinary

documentary, which, with the added benefit of 3-D, aims and largely succeeds at evoking the,

for most of us, virtually unattainable experience of being physically present at this incredible

location.

We are guided during our cinematic tour by a flock of sometimes endearingly eccentric

experts: a paleontologist who exuberantly lists the many species whose skeletal remains are in

the cave; an archaeologist who wears Palaeolithic era clothing and plays ‘The Star Spangled

Banner’ on a replica bone flute; art historians who elucidate the artistic merit and technique of

the cave’s artists.

Footage of the cave’s interior would, in itself, make a fascinating film. The hundreds of

paintings that clamour upon the undulating walls are more than simply interesting relics.

They are remarkable artworks, both technically and aesthetically. Subtleties of shape and

shading give depth and character to ostensibly simple animal figures, immaculately etched

upon the rippling canvas.

But it is no accident that the promotional poster for Cave of Forgotten Dreams includes the

sillhouette of Herzog, the veteran maverick filmmaker himself, cast alongside a detail from

one of this prehistoric gallery’s more famous pieces, the ‘panel of horses’. For better and

worse, Herzog is a presence in the film, serving as a sort of narrator-cum-quasi-philosopher.

The best of Herzog’s intrusions are profound. He notes the illusion of movement in the art,

effected by blurred edges or ghosts of multiple limbs, and enhanced by electric torchlight that

churns against the rocky contours, mimicking the firelight of the paintings’ original ‘audience’.

This was, he postulates, a type of ‘proto-cinema’; indeed the thread of human artistry that

connects the cave’s Palaeolithic storytellers to Herzog and his contemporary film crew is

alluded to at other times.

On the other hand, the film contains a bizarre postscript during which Herzog daydreams

Volume 21 Issue: 18

23 September 2011

©2011 EurekaStreet.com.au 7

about what the mutant albino crocodiles, who dwell nearby in a greenhouse heated by runoff

from a nuclear power plant, might think if they one day made their way to the cave and gazed

upon its paintings. This is the most obscure of Herzog’s musings, and an alienating note on

which to conclude.

It must be said that Herzog is at times a condescending interviewer. He regards his subjects

with anything from mute respect to detached fondness, or less. In one scene he snaps at an

archaeologist who is attempting, with limited success, to demonstrate Palaeolithic

spear-throwing techniques; in this instance Herzog crosses the line from gentle joshing to

outright ridicule.

But he is at other times astute and discerning. Guided by his questioning and observations,

the experts are able to evoke, beyond the academic historical and cultural importance of the

site, the awe-inspiring, even mystical aura that dwells inside the cave.

One expert reflects on the relationship of the Chauvet paintings to those of Australian

Aboriginals, among some of whom rock painting is a living tradition. He refers to a ritualised

practice whereby paintings are periodically retouched by successive artists, to counter the

wear of weather and time. In this there is an underlying belief that both the original painting

and the repairs have a divine source.

It’s likely, he infers, that the Chauvet Cave painters had a similar belief, that art was the

work not of man but of ‘the spirit’. Even gazing upon their images from a distance, through a

pair of 3-D glasses in the dark of a cinema in Australia, it is not hard to share this belief.

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