A wonderful movie – part left-brained, part right-brained. Part scientific facts, part dreamscape. Let your eyes and ears go into soft focus and it becomes the shaman’s journey.
It’s the story of the discovery, in 1994, of a cave in France with cave paintings from about 30,000 years ago. It is a cave that has been lived in by humans at different times, and at other times, by cave bears – huge ancient bears, who lived when there were glaciers 9,000 feet thick on the French hills where grape vines now grow.
Previous caves have been harmed by the breath of the humans who flooded in to see, so access to this one is strictly controlled, with no touching and no walking on anything but the metal walkways. The drawings / paintings are incredible. Horses, lions, rhinoceri, huge deer, bison – as though they are in movement, leaping across the walls. Unhook your left brain at that point, and let the images roam as they will. The Postcript, added on, left me with heartbreak.
We humans may be smart, but in so many ways – up until now – we have not been wise.
It’s playing through next Thursday at the Mariemont Theatre.