8 / 10
Official trailer
Cave of Forgotten Dreams is Werner Herzog’s 2010 Canadian-American-French-German-British documentary depicting the Chauvet Cave in southern France, which contains some of the oldest known cave paintings, dated to more than thirty thousand years ago. The production received exceptional access to the otherwise sealed cave, with Herzog’s small crew filming the paintings using lightweight equipment that conventional documentary couldn’t deploy. Creative Differences and History Films produced the film. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2010.
Herzog gives me goosebumps here. He puts me a few feet from paintings made thirty thousand years ago, and I find myself staring at those lines on the rock the way I’d stare at a photograph of a stranger’s family. It’s slow in places and some of his musing wanders, but I wouldn’t trade the time in that cave for much of anything.
The film shows what a documentary can do with material that took heavy negotiation just to reach. The paintings bring their own age and weight, and Herzog adds a philosophical voice that lets him wonder aloud about the painters and their world. Later films about prehistoric subjects built on what he did here.
The Access Achievement
The documentary depends on access to the Chauvet Cave, which the French government otherwise restricts to scientific research. Herzog got in through negotiation that few documentary makers could have managed. The film generates documentary content that no other production can replicate.
The crew worked under hard limits, with little time on the platforms inside the cave and strict rules on lighting, and the film makes those limits part of its look. I like that Herzog doesn’t hide them. Knowing how little room he had makes every shot of those walls feel stolen, and I think that’s part of why the film hits me as hard as it does.
For Writers
Documentary access to protected sites means accepting the constraints that protect them. Look at how Herzog’s production accommodates the cave’s preservation needs.
The 3D Approach
3D photography carries the film, and the cave subject matter justified it through the paintings’ use of natural rock surfaces. The 3D registers depth that 2D couldn’t provide and presents the paintings as physical objects instead of mere images.
The 3D lets the film show how the painters worked with the natural contours of the rock. 3D is usually a gimmick to me, and here it’s the only way to see the work properly. It turns the paintings into objects with shape, and I think a flat version of this film would lose half its power.
For Writers
Documentary technical choices can encode real material when justified by the subject. Pay attention to how Herzog’s 3D approach presents the paintings as physical objects instead of mere images.
The Herzog Speculation
Werner Herzog’s speculative attention to the painters and their world anchors the documentary. A conventional archaeological documentary would suppress that philosophical voice, and Herzog makes it the film’s signature tone, one his later documentaries extended.
Then comes the coda about albino crocodiles in the nearby thermal springs, and I adore it. It’s pure Herzog, strange and a little ridiculous, and it pushes the film past archaeology into something closer to a dream. Some of his speculation earlier on wanders too far for my taste, and this is the one time the wandering pays off completely.
For Writers
A documentary can treat the filmmaker’s own interpretive presence as real content beyond the subject’s usual scope. Notice how Herzog’s albino crocodile coda extends the picture’s reach.
Craft Note
In the end, the film shows how documentary builds through access to material whose protection requires accepting constraints. The production’s mounting reputation confirmed its status. The deliberate pacing and philosophical voice required acceptance from audiences expecting conventional archaeological documentary, though the film rewards engaged viewing through its unique access and Herzog’s distinctive approach.
Is Cave of Forgotten Dreams worth watching?
An 8 from me. The access alone makes it worth seeing, the 3D justifies itself, and the crocodile coda is Herzog at his strangest and best. What keeps it from climbing higher is the pace, slow enough in stretches that my attention drifts, and a few runs of musing that go nowhere. Anybody interested in prehistoric art, or in how Herzog makes documentaries, should see it.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Cave of Forgotten Dreams: Film Review, The Hollywood Reporter
- Toronto: Werner Herzog's 3-D cave movie, Salon
- Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Wikipedia
- Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010), IMDb
