Cave Of Forgotten Dreams- Film Review

On Friday night i went to (in my opinion) The Best Cinema in the world, The Duke of York's Cinema in Brighton and watched German director Werner Herzog's latest documentary 'Cave of Forgotten Dreams'. Which shows his venture into Chauvet Cave in Southern France which in 1994 was discovered to have the oldest art ever discovered in the world. The film is shot in 3D as Herzog wanted to prove that 3D films don't need to be a monotonous chain of drivel from Dreamwork or Disney. Alot of cinemas have been said to be screening the film in 2D because they felt it didn't make a difference to the film. This (in my opinion again) is a bad choice. I believe that this completely enhanced the film.

Personally I found this film fascinating. It started with Herzog entering the cave with a team of scientists. Although this sequence was very jittery and this could be very disconcerting It was a very simple and well made intro. The film is set out by starting to look at the cave and introduce the paintings. They showed the techniques used to discover more such as Carbon Dating and how they examined the red dots that one of the ancient artists made with his hand on the rocks and how they were examined to show that this person was a 6 foot tall man (or woman) with a bent pinky finger.


Herzog's narration of the film is very relaxing. Relaxing to the point in which I was the only person in our party of 5 who watched the film from start to finish without my eyes shutting for an extended period of time. As I learnt by the fascinated reactions of my family and friends. To start off I was a bit annoyed at them for not connecting with this film with the same level that I did, but I came o understand that  it wasn't at all to do with how much they appreciated the film but the mood they were in. I can understand that people can be in the mood for anything. I was in a particularly intellectual mood and happy to listen intently to the narration and facts and found it extremely interesting but looking back I can really appreciate how good a snooze in a dark room with calming music playing and a quiet German accent inform the audience.


I enjoyed the film, the cinematography was stunning at times, and the topics were incredibly interesting but the film isn't for everyone and even for those who's cup of tea it is sometimes there's something that you would much rather be doing than sitting in a dark room listening to interesting facts about geology and ancient art. 

8/10
Tip- Watch the film when you feel like watching it. If you don't then it won't be the nicest experience.