Cave of Forgotten Dreams AKA Werner Herzog in 3D

[Stay Puft]

Mentioned this before, figured it's time for a thread.

http://media.tiff.net:8080/contents/stills/caveofforgottendream_01.jpg

http://tiff.net/filmsandschedules/tiff/2010/caveofforgottendream

It has been announced for Toronto next month, where it will have its world premiere.


Werner Herzog gains rare access to the Chauvet caves of southern France to film the oldest known images of mankind. He puts 3D technology to a profound use, taking us back in time over 30,000 years.

My original post from the other thread had links to Herzog discussing the project, which I'll repost:


Herzog on the production, why he wanted to film in 3D:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7H-VodcRG4o&feature=player_embedded

Herzog shares anecdotes, talks about why 3D is a bad idea:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phVcMfhGv4g&feature=player_embedded

More info about the Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave, for those not in the know:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chauvet_Cave

Sounds like an awesome project.

[Stay Puft]

Alternatively, there's this website from the French Ministry of Culture:
http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/chauvet/en/

[Stay Puft]

World premiere one week from tonight! And I have tickets! Yay!

[Stay Puft]

I totally forgot I promised to say more about this film in the Toronto thread. Let's see what I can muster a couple months after the fact.

I feel I should address the viewing experience itself, since that undoubtedly influenced my perception of the film.

The experience was, to some extent, a disaster. The film stopped abruptly a couple times for whatever reason (it looked like the projector had stopped at one point, or that the digital projection had been corrupted). Then, just before the end of the film, during one of the most important moments, the building itself (the Lightbox; this was the first day it was open) experienced a system shutdown. We waited between 5 and 10 minutes or so before everything was back up and running. At first some people thought the movie had simply ended (indeed, the only thing we really missed was the coda) and began applausing. When the producer took the stage for the Q&A, he was visibly upset. The documentary programmer for TIFF was extremely red in the face.

Now, the film itself also seemed a bit of a disaster to me. Perhaps I only think of it in these terms because of the above experience, but I thought the use of 3D in the film was downright embarrasing at times. The footage of the cave itself is generally breathtaking, to be fair. The illusion is remarkable and visceral; you get an astonishing sense of the space and the contours of the walls. It's perhaps the best use of 3D technology I've seen. But the footage outside of the cave is also shot in 3D and with a camera of noticeably lower quality. The effect is not nearly as convincing, and actually quite distracting and disorienting at times. Worse, there is footage in the film that was not shot in 3D whatsoever, but was altered in post-production (or so it seems to me), and this accounts for what is easily the worst 3D I have ever seen in a film. The footage is completely awful, visually incoherent, and just embarrasing. A friend of mine who attended the screening expressed these exact sentiments afterwards, insisting that there was no way Herzog, who was sitting merely two rows back from us, could possibly be watching this and thinking it looks good or is in any way acceptable.

I have no idea if the film will be released in this form or continues to travel the festival circuit in this form. Herzog claimed the film was finished merely fourteen hours or so before it was screened for us in Toronto. I see that a couple other Match Cutters have now seen the film elsewhere, I'd be curious to know what state the 3D effects were in.

Anyways, all of this obviously contributed to a rather distracting viewing experience. The footage of the caves are essential, obviously. Other footage not so much, though the aforementioned coda was delightfully Herzog. The final sequence of the caves, with Ernst Reijseger's music, was also great. My aforementioned friend (also a huge Herzog fan) said the film seemed more important as an historical document than a Herzog film, and I share the sentiment to a certain extent. The importance of this visual document, and the strength of its central images, overshadows everything else.

[MadMan]

Good review, Stay Puft. Even if the film is indeed something of a mess if it comes to my area I'm still going to see it.

[Spinal]

Pretty much agree with Stay Puft. Possibly an important film, but not a very good one. Seeing the paintings is kind of neat, but the context Herzog provides does not warrant a feature film. It feels like we are circling around, seeing the same images multiple times and just sort of saying, 'Wow'. A few nifty bits of trivia come up, but Herzog fails to come up with a compelling central thesis to drive his film, as he did with films like Grizzly Man and Encounters at the End of the World. Herzog's coda borders on self-parody, but worse yet, it also borders on incoherence. A disappointment.

[D_Davis]

Yeah - it's basically a 30-minute Discovery channel special extended to feature-length.

[origami_mustache]

I kind of agree with the sentiments about the 3D footage outside the cave being silly and some of the scenes clearly staged and certainly seem like self parody, but that's what I've come to expect from a Herzog film and what I look forward to. His nonsensical metaphors, pontifications, and exaggerations are quite hilarious and entertaining. The perfumer and the the guy poorly showcasing the ancient weapons were completely unnecessary, but I loved it and I think it's great Herzog can manage to capture such beautiful imagery with some wonderful music and some of the most effective 3D I've seen one minute and the next, start rambling about albino alligators at a nearby nuclear power plant that turned white after being removed from their habitat which he openly admits is a complete fabrication.

[Spinal]

The close-up of the perfumer's face was my favorite 3D moment in the entire film.

[D_Davis]

I wish Herzog would have spent more time with the experimental guys. Easily the most interesting part of the film.

The segment with the lady art historian was a total drag, a snooze fest.

[lovejuice]

Aside from the alligator, I have no problem with material outside the cave. Much of that provides a context to how tremendous this discovery is: the birth of modern man, homo spiritualist, and whatnot.