Saw it a few days ago. Funny stuff.

I saw the movie as being split into two parts.

For one, it spent alot of time making fun of the way we record and observe this type of finding. Both scientifically and the art history side. Werner's pissing on everybody in this film...especially that woman who was interpreting the 'meaning' of the paintings....the curator of the cave. I was cracking up when he tied a camera to a stick to reveal the answer to one of her 'mysteries'.

Or the history nerd who tries unsuccessfully to throw a spear.....Or the 'heartbeat' scene which was clearly staged and satirized the standard discovery channel treatment this cave might have got.....Or the largely misunderstood albino alligator ending. He clearly is comparing them to modern humanity. "I wonder what they will think when they crawl into the cave and see the paintings for themselves'.

Perhaps the most openly comedic films he's made. He also lies a few times....hilariously. A quote from the movie: 'We are locked in history. They (the painters) were not.'


Two, the only modern human act that is safe from Werner's parody is filmmaking. The only modern human act that is taken seriously. It's represented as a 'natural act' that has kinship or lineage with the 30,000 year old paintings. Werner's ego is in full bloom here.

At one point, calls the paintings 'proto-films'....there seemed to be a comparison between the walls of the cave and his filmstock, being 3d......compares the observance of shadows in the cave with Fred Astaire's 'shadow dance' scene......Long indulgent shots that stood in contrast to the farcical nature of the other scenes and suggest 'just look stupid....stop talking'.

This movie is not about the paintings. It's not a historical documentary. It's part-comedy. And philosophically, it's about OUR PERCEPTION of the paintings. And how our aims to quantify, interpret and 'find meaning' provide evidence of our unique place in nature....and how this 'nature' is both similar and different to that of the painters.

We are locked in history. They were not.