Cave of Forgotten Dreams at the IFC Center

In town for The Colbert Report ("whatever that means"), Werner Herzog stopped by a Sunday night screening of his mega-smash-go-see-it-if-you-can documentary, Cave of Forgotten Dreams. "I've come for your questions," he began, then discoursed about his love of books ("do not misunderestimate [their] value"), shrinks ("they're all wrong"), childhood ("I didn't make a phone call until I was 17"), and dreams ("I dreamt I had a sandwich for lunch"). But he really warmed to the subject of audience, urging budding filmmakers to trust those who will watch their films: "You have to be bold."

"I take you on a wild ride," he boasted about his latest documentary, but Cave is less wild and decidedly more beautiful than, say, Grizzly Man or Fitzcarraldo. Depicting the 32,000-year-old art discovered in the Chauvet Cave in southern France, this movie is exactly the reason 3D technology was invented. It is stunning. Images of horses, lions, rhinos, buffaloes, mammoths, and a woman's vulva come flying at you, explained by the idiosyncratic characters to whom Herzog tends to gravitate (one man, an experimental archaeologist, re-created a flute found on site made from a vulture femur, then used it to play several bars of The Star-Spangled Banner; another used to ride a unicycle in the circus). We know almost nothing about the people who made the art, except for what we could see: an attempt, in black and red, to render the world they saw, an ever-present, deeply human instinct.    

Photo: thanks
spcae