@NZFF Review 1 – Cave of Forgotten Dreams

Figured I’d start a series of idiosyncratic film reviews of what I’ve seen at the NZ Film Festival, so consider this the first of many… Last night was the opening gala screening & party for the Wellington branch of the 40th NZ Film Festival and the premiere film was Werner Herzog’s 3D film Cave of Forgotten Dreams – here’s the trailer if you haven’t seen it:

After the overwhelmingly empty experience of seeing Avatar in 3D last year (I had forgotten most of that film by the time I left the lobby) this film was such welcome relief – there is hope for 3D yet! I’m similarly keen as hell to see Wim Wenders 3D film Pina and have my tickets booked for later in the festival, but more on it after I’ve seen it.

As a documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams took us places we will never get to go i.e. a cave in France containing 32,000 year old paintings, and while you might think primitive rock paintings would literally be primitive these are are far from simple, rough or anything remotely primitive – astonishing would be a better term. But it is the back story and analysis Herzog pursues that makes this film far more than simply a film documenting works of art.

It was quite strange, after the screening I felt a little dazed, not from the 3D but from being immersed in the world of the film. But talking to some friends of friends at the after party I started to wonder if I had seen a different film than what they had, their first two comments were “we expected more facts” (!?) and “they should have gotten someone else to write the script – what was he on about?” – I had to interrupt the latter statement and as I started to rant about the many beautifully existential moments in the film (which for me, are a fundamental part of Herzogs appeal as a film maker) I could see their eyes glaze over… Exit conversation, head to the bar… I guess Werner Herzog is an acquired taste, but for willing participants (both in the audience and in the film) his ability to segue from a literal statement of fact to an abstraction that reflects deeply on the human condition is worth the price of admission on its own. I don’t want to share any specifics of these moments such that they could be spoilers, but the film is rich with them and they have so much more depth and power than mere ‘facts’

Due to space constraints, its impossible for Herzog to hide his tiny film crew and so we see parts of their process, including how they shot some of the truly amazing exteriors. What starts as a beautifully smooth crane shot just keeps on going, and when the process is revealed later in the film, I had what was the 3D perceptual equivalent of a panic attack – almost like someone reaching inside your head.

But the last aspect I’d like to comment on was sound. There is a very beautiful moment early in the film, I think it is the first time we enter the cave and Herzog asks his crew to stop and ‘listen to silence of the cave…’ In the process of filmmaking this would normally be considered the rudimentary process of recording a wildtrack/ambience but in the context of the film it made a packed theatre of expectant film goers also become silent and really listen. And it set the tone for what was a thoroughly engaging experience…. Extraordinary!

“To call “Cave of Forgotten Dreams” a great movie isn’t just an understatement, it’s a wildly inaccurate way to describe an experience that, in its immersive sensory pleasures and climactic journey of discovery, more closely resembles an ecstatic trance.”

Ann Hornaday in Washington Post