Werner Herzog directs the feature-length documentary, Cave Of Forgotten Dreams.
Does it really have a tangible effect on how we engage with films?
The drawings themselves are remarkable in their accuracy and vigour.
As one anthropologist points out, they look uncannily like Picasso charcoal drawings.
Far from crude scrawls, the animals are boldly picked out with great sweeping strokes of the arm.
Horses gallop in a bustling herd, rhinos clash horns with palpable violence.
Elsewhere in the cave lie the bones of bears, the ashen remains of a humans torch.
There are footprints, too.
By interviewing various experts, Herzog provides what little insight there is into these long-gone artists.
We know from archaeological finds elsewhere that they played music on flutes and that they were expert carvers.
One archaeologist was formerly a circus juggler before switching careers.
We meet an experimental anthropologist who wears reindeer skins and plays usThe Star-Spangled Banneron his vulture bone flute.
Then theres an engaging fellow who sniffs out hidden caves with his keenly trained nose.
This is precisely whatCave Of Forgotten Dreamsdoes.
Its a fascinating, thought-provoking film that shows just how ancient our artistic instincts are.
Rating:
4 out of 5
