The Caves of Forgotten Dreams 3D

Okay, I've stated that 3D isn't really my cup of tea - great for gimmicks but not really adding enough to merit wearing cheap, nasty plastic glasses over my regular specs. So part of me was uneasy about going to see a 3d documentary, but this film had some truly amazing pluses to swing it. The biggest is of course its director, Werner Herzog, the man who voice I hear in my head when I feel my life needs a little narration and it subject matter, a recently discovered cave of Paleolithic Art.

It a stunning film - opening with a crane shot that truly made me rethink everything I've every thought about a 3d film. It's breathtaking. Less than an hour later I was sitting with with my head between my knees battling sea sickness as the camera man ran up a cliff path. Even that doesn't alter the fact that it is a magnificent visual film.

The eco-system of the cave are so fragile that breathing can harm the artwork and archeology inside. The art is so important that there is the suggestion that a reproduction of cave be reconstructed else where for public viewing and until that happens this is going to be your only chance to see inside the network of caves. So Herzog makes the most of the opportunity by taking 3D camera in to emphasise how the artists worked on the undulating wall surfaces into their work

Herzog talks to the scientists who get to spend their time working amongst the ancient paintings and as always he find people who are slightly off centre/unique/who you'd either run a mile from or invite around to tea. But I always find these interludes to be the slowest most uninteresting parts of any Herzog documentery, the man is a true genius who can make a former circus performer and someone dressed as a stone aged shaman take second place to a buffalo drawn on a cave wall.

In the end the 3D paled into the background and the whole audience was swept up in warm fluffy blanket that Bavarian accent casts around you. You start to feel as tiny and insignificant as a tiny grain of sand, but thats alright because you are one amongst a million & millions of tiny grains of sand, some of the grains lived millennia ago and some are sitting next to you, in the dark, wearing silly glasses.