Film of the Week: Cave of Forgotten Dreams
By Vadim Rizov In the last few years, there's been several signs that the Werner Herzog persona ? an increasingly dominant presence in his documentaries ? is tipping towards self-parody. Last year's "Werner Herzog Reads Curious George" video was initially mistaken by many people as the real thing, a sign that others can now plausibly forge their own Herzog soundtbites. Some of the more dyspeptic sentiments in Encounters at the End of the World made critic Theo Panayides daydream about "a live-action 'Muppet Show' movie with Herzog and Tommy Lee Jones as Stadler and Waldorf." Now 68, Herzog stopped placing himself directly in harm's way some time ago, but has cannily realized he's still his own most sellable aspect, barking out mystic sentiments and ridiculously bold pronouncements on demand.
Fortunately, as a comic persona, Herzog is funny and self-reflexive. Still, sometimes cracks show. Cave Of Forgotten Dreams, by far one of Herzog's most strait-laced documentaries, is mostly intended as a kind of public service: documenting perfectly preserved 30,000-year-old cave paintings most people will never have a chance to see in person, a task evidently serious enough to preclude messing around. To prevent mold damage, the Chauvet Cave in southern France only opens for an elite group of scientists for two weeks' worth of study annually. Herzog's access is rare, and he takes it seriously.
This may be a relief: Herzog's genuinely mesmerized by the paintings, and almost certainly would've been happy to just wordlessly depict them (the end, indeed, is a severe presentation of many drawings set to vaguely religious chanting, paring down viewers' attention much like Antonio Gaudi's wordless architecture tour). That enthusiasm doesn't cross over if you're not inherently interested in the subject. There's a few fuzzy conversations with scientists about the cave's present-day resonance and what it can teach us (much gassy talk of "the modern human soul"), but the images' power never really acquires connotations resonance. (As a counter-example in making an esoteric but dry subject interesting to the uninitiated, see Patricio Guzman's Nostalgia For The Light, which pits Chilean interest in astronomy and learning about the distant past against a willful refusal to think about the country's recent political past, a productive tension the likes of which Herzog doesn't attempt.) That's a polite way of saying this viewer barely passed Western Art I and can't really work up the historical imagination necessary to engage with these images, and so your mileage may vary.
The scientists being interviewed are largely asked questions as scientists, not as as the kind of potentially interesting eccentric character sketches that often fill out Herzog's docs (recently: the sinister coroner in Grizzly Man, the anti-social penguin scientist in Encounters). The most "Herzogian" bit ? an alleged "experimental archeologist" dressed in caveman furs ? falls flat. Inside the cave, though, straightforward science and ad hoc lighting pragmatics ? Herzog wryly apologizing for not always being able to keep his equipment out of the frame ? undeniably compel. The air of concentrated, unforced scientific discipline and focus inside is compelling and refreshingly intense, as is watching the crew work out the logistics.
Aside from the truly mind-blowing finale (in which Herzog invites us to consider albino alligators as a metaphor for humanity), the only characteristically offbeat moment that connects is watching a scientist demonstrate caveman hunting methods. Though he knows how to hold the spear, he can't throw very hard or far, and Herzog points out, not unkindly, that if he had to hunt for his dinner, he'd be doomed. (The scientist concurs.) Consistent in Herzog's documentaries is a fundamental, unexpected niceness that's empathetic where others might be exploitative of condescending: he's genuinely enthusiastic about giving the non-famous a chance to turn themselves, briefly, into an interesting anecdote.
Similarly, his interest in the many diverse topics he's examined ? medieval composers, Arctic scientists, Harlem preachers ? always seems genuine; he always gives his full attention. Even at his slightest (this and The Wide Blue Yonder are two of the thinner movies Herzog's made recently ? narrow in the footage's focus, mostly humorless), his work turns out to be surprisingly soothing thanks to its unforced gentleness and appreciation for everyone he encounters: surely the last late-career development you'd expect from a man who used to build movies from near-psychotic confrontations with Klaus Kinski and legendary, self-imposed brushes with death. The 3D captures the cave's contours in a totally anti-sensationalist manner, betraying Herzog's on-the-record skepticism about the format as useful for anything but such rare, specific challenges.
Posted by cphillips at April 27, 2011 12:51 PM
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/greencine/daily/~3/D2ZE4TO2wrI/008049.html
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